Tim Clark, president of Emirates, said he had protested to Airbus after its finance director aired the possibility of ending production of the flagship jet due to poor sales.
Dubai: The head of Emirates airline has reacted angrily to a suggestion by Airbus that it might stop making its A380 superjumbo airliner, saying it could double its investment if the planemaker agreed to upgrade the A380 instead. Tim Clark, president of Emirates, said he had protested to Airbus after its finance director aired the possibility of ending production of the flagship jet due to poor sales.
“I am not particularly happy as you can imagine,” Clark said in an interview. “We are on the hook for this plane. I get pretty miffed when we have put so much at stake.”
Harald Wilhelm told analysts on Wednesday Airbus would break even on the A380 through 2018, “if we would do something on the product, or even if we would discontinue the product”.
Airbus immediately sought to defuse the row, saying it expects to go ahead with plans to give the superjumbo more efficient engines or even build an ultra-high-capacity stretch version. Fabrice Bregier, who leads the company’s airliner unit, told investors that upgrades of the A380 are just a matter of time.
While Airbus needs to convince potential customers that the upside to the double-decker outweighs its challenges and must make a sound business case for any enhancements, development of a re-engined version as well as a stretch variant will happen “one day”, Bregier said during the briefing in London, asking “where is the problem with the A380?”
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