Airbus is ending the A380 program, pulling the plug on its iconic superjumbo jet that when promised to revolutionize business air journey however did not ship on outsized expectations.
The European aircraft maker mentioned Thursday that it’s going to cease delivering A380s in 2021 after Dubai-based airline Emirates slashed its orders for the large jetliner.
“We now have no substantial A380 backlog and therefore no foundation to maintain manufacturing, regardless of all our gross sales efforts with different airways in recent times,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders mentioned in an announcement.
The A380, the world’s largest airliner, first took to the skies 14 years in the past. However Airbus’ big wager that airways would want numerous extra-big planes to fly passengers between main airport hubs didn’t repay as the corporate had hoped.
The corporate has delivered 234 of the superjumbos up to now, lower than 1 / 4 of the 1,200 it predicted it might promote when it first launched the double-decker plane. Its plans had been undermined by airways shifting their curiosity to lighter, extra gasoline environment friendly passenger jets which have diminished the necessity to ferry passengers between the massive hubs.
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