Airbus A380 Its Best Is Yet To Come?

Airbus won’t be offering a re-engined version, or neo (new engine option), of its giant A380 any time soon. That became clear at the European planemaker’s annual Innovation Days media event in Hamburg recently. On the other hand, despite an ongoing struggle to win new customers for the world’s largest airliner, the company’s top officials remain convinced boom times will come for its superjumbo order book.

Airbus’s top salesman John Leahy isn’t the sort to surrender in the face of adversity and he certainly isn’t giving up on a big jet that doesn’t exactly have airlines bashing down his door and flooding him with orders. By any measure, sales of the A380 remain stagnant and the few deals that are being done aren’t making the European planemaker much in the way of profits.

Yet Leahy remains as effusive as ever about his big baby, forecasting that at some stage the dam will burst and customers will be queuing to sign up. That’s because he believes that ultimately, carriers will have no choice.