It's not the news that Airbus was hoping to hear, but Emirates (EK, Dubai International) wants assurances from the manufacturer about the future of its A380-800 program before it commits to ordering more of the double-decker, reports Bloomberg.
As previously reported, Airbus is relying on Emirates to put in an order of at least twenty A380s at the Dubai Air Show next month in order to keep the superjumbo in production. Anything less will reduce its output to fewer than twelve frames per year.
But Emirates President Tim Clark is worried that he'll be left with a glut of aircraft with no resale value.
“I know they would like us to do something,” Clark said this week. “At the moment, we are not at that state of readiness. We need copper-bottomed undertakings that they would do everything they needed to do to keep the program going. We don’t want to be left with aircraft that have no value.”
Emirates is by far the biggest customer of the A380, operating ninety-five of the double-decker jets – out of a total of 213 A380s worldwide – with an additional forty-seven on order. But orders from other airlines have petered out over the past few years, leaving Emirates and Airbus in a Mexican standoff over the program's future.
