Airline News
New setbacks for A380 program
August 31st 2015
It was a bad news week for Airbus’ A380 program. The Vietnamese government last Wednesday said it would not exercise the options on the four A380s it signed for in 2009. Read More » National carrier, Vietnam Airlines, cited “increased pressure of arranging capital for aircraft purchases" as a key factor, along with slow progress on the construction of Ho Chi Minh City’s Long Thanh International Airport, the only Vietnamese airport capable of handling the A380. Vietnamese media last week reported the flag carrier would scale down its original plan to increase its fleet to 150 aircraft in the next five years and would instead grow its fleet of 97 aircraft to just over 120 aircraft.
A few days earlier, Airbus Group postponed the delivery of four-on-order A380s to Transaero Airlines to help Russia’s second largest carrier cope with slowing travel demand in its home market after sanctions have crippled the Russian economy. “We’re working with them to determine new dates,” Chris Buckley, Airbus’ executive vice-president for customer affairs, told Bloomberg at the Moscow Air Show. “Given the turbulence in the Russian market overall in the last two years, this is no big surprise.” Buckley added Airbus needed to work on getting Transaero to firm the 20 A330 options it signed at the 2014 Farnborough Airshow.
The A380 has not won a new customer in more than three years and Virgin Atlantic Airways is mulling whether it needs its six-on-order superjumbos. Virgin Atlantic’s Asia-Pacific boss, Stephen King, last week told Orient Aviation the carrier would make a final decision on the A380 “by the end of the year”.
