News
SAUDIA A380 pitch confirmed
December 4th 2015
Airbus head of sales for the Middle East, Habib Fekih, has confirmed the manufacturer has offered Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAUDIA) the high-density 615-seat configuration A380 that entered service with launch customer, Emirates Airline, on the Dubai-Copenhagen route this week. Read More »
“A handful" of high-capacity double-deckers could help ease pressure on Saudi infrastructure "by many folds", Fekih told Bloomberg in Dubai.
SAUDIA chief, Abdul Mohsen Jonaid, said in October the Saudi flag carrier was evaluating the A380 as part of a plan to expand its fleet from 119 to 200 aircraft by 2020 and add flights at the new Jeddah airport, due to open in 2017. It is forecast there will be a 10-fold increase in hajj passengers to 60 million by 2018, based on numbers from Saudi authorities.
Airbus’ flagship A380 is headed for a third year without a new customer unless the manufacturer’s chief operating officer customers, John Leahy, writes a deal in the next four weeks.
At the Dubai Airshow in November, Leahy said he was working with two potential buyers for 32 A380 orders, which will enable him to make good on a June pledge to bring in 25 orders in 2015, although the talks could run into 2016, he added. Apart from SAUDIA, Royal Air Maroc (RAM) and Turkish Airlines have said they were interested in the double-decker, while current operators Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, and Thai Airways International (THAI) have ruled out top up orders. Emirates and Qatar Airways have said they were only interested in a re-engined version to replace their current A380 fleets.
Overall, it has been a difficult year for A380 orders. In August, the Vietnamese government said it would not exercise its options on the four A380s it signed for in 2009. 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’s new airport.
Reunion’s Air Austral shows no sign of taking two A380s in an 840-seat super-high-density layout after a strategy change, while Russia’s Transaero Airlines, which specified a 652-seat plan for four jets, has gone belly up, following Skymark Airlines’ lead after the Japanese carrier filed for bankruptcy in January, partly due to a dispute with Airbus over an A380 order it was unable to honour. Virgin Atlantic Airways is mulling the need for six-on-order A380s. The carrier’s Asia-Pacific boss, Stephen King, told Orient Aviation a final decision is due by year-end.
