Dubai: Emirates Airline said on Thursday it was “disappointed” and “sad” that Airbus’s A380 programme could not sustained, after the European aircraft manufacturer announced it would scrap production of A380s.
Emirates, which has long been the A380’s main customer, said the aircraft model will remain in its fleet “well into the 2030s,” even as it said it is tweaking its existing order of A380s to more A330s and A350s.
The carrier announced it has signed a $21.4-billion-deal with Airbus for an order of 40 A330-900 aircraft and 30 A350-900 aircraft, which will be delivered to Emirates starting from 2021 and 2024 respectively.
As for A380s, Emirates and Airbus said they reached an agreement on the outstanding deliveries, with the airline to receive 14 more A380s from 2019 till the end of 2021. The 14 aircraft will bring Emirates’ total A380 order book to 123 units.
This is a reduction from the planned 36 additional A380s that Emirates was set to receive from 2020 and a backlog of even more aircraft, which would have taken Emirates A380 fleet to 178 units.
