Airbus halves delivery target for A380

Airbus has more than halved its delivery target for its super-jumbo A380 planes.

The company said it would supply 12 of the aircraft per year from 2018, down from the 27 it delivered in 2015.

It announced the cutback at the Farnborough Airshow.

The A380's disappointing demand is in contrast to that for its smaller planes. The European plane maker earlier announced $20bn in orders for smaller planes.

There are 193 two-deck A380s in operation.

The aircraft only began breaking even last year. Airbus said it would still achieve that next year with as few as 20 deliveries but gave no further guidance.

The announcement of a fall in deliveries raises fears it could revert to making losses.

Airbus said: "The company will continue to improve the efficiency of its industrial system to achieve breakeven at 20 aircraft in 2017 and targets additional cost reduction initiatives to lower breakeven further."

There has been a shift to smaller, two-engine models away from the giant four-engine 544-seat A380.

Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic on Monday ordered 12 of Airbus's A350-1000 twin-engined jets. He had been an enthusiast for the A380.

In April, Reuters news agency reported that Airbus had asked suppliers to slow production to support a production assembly rate of 1.7 a month from 2017, down from just over two a month.