Airbus says it may shut down A380 superjumbo

Airbus publicly questioned the future of the A380, saying its flagship aircraft program risks being shut down if the manufacturer fails to win a crucial order from the plane’s main backer, Emirates of Dubai.

Emirates is the only airline with enough capacity to take enough planes to keep the program alive, Airbus sales chief John Leahy said Monday in an online presentation. Discussions are ongoing, he said.

“I believe we can find a solution with Emirates in hopefully the nottoo-distant future,” Leahy said in an interview. “But we do need a strong base that only a big operator like Emirates can provide.”

Airbus has struggled to rack up sales of the superjumbo, which it argues will be needed to help increase passenger traffic at the world’s busiest airports. The company was forced to slash production rates in July to try and stretch out the order book.

Emirates, by far the biggest operator of the plane, scuttled a deal to buy 36 of the planes in November.

Airbus wants Emirates to order enough planes to sustain production at six a year over the next 10 years, giving the planemaker scope to sell two or three of the superjumbos on top of that to eke out a profit on the program, Leahy said.

The company produced 15 in 2017, will hand over 12 this year and just eight in 2019. Airbus can produce as few as six of the planes annually with “reasonable efficiency,” commercial aircraft chief Fabrice Bregier said, adding that a formal decision to drop to that level hasn’t yet been made.

The plane’s future has been in doubt for several years. As far back as 2014, Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm said the program could be killed if demand didn’t pick up.