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A BIG BOOST FOR THE A380 SUPERJUMBO
JAPAN’S BIGGEST CARRIER, ANA HOLDINGS, HAS BOUGHT THREE A380 JETS AND WILL BE THE
FIRST COUNTRY TO OPERATE THE AIRCRAFT. WITH THIS SALE, AIRBUS ENDS WITH TWO YEARS OF
DROUGHT WITHOUT NEW ORDERS FOR THE A380. AIRBUS HAS ALSO CONFIRMED A FIRM ORDER
FOR EIGHT A330 MRTT FROM FRANCE.
Airbus faces a new year with good news. The European
manufacturer starts 2016 with an order for one of its most
important programmes, the A380 superjumbo, in which
is involved the Airbus site in Puerto Real (Cádiz) and some
Andalusian companies. The airline All Nippon Airways
(ANA) have purchased three units of the A380, becoming
the first airline in Japan to operate with this Airbus aircraft.
The deal is worth about €1,150 million, and the planes
will be used for the expansion of ANA’s international air
connections, especially on the way to Hawaii (USA), a
popular destination for Japanese tourists. The Japanese
airline has currently a 15% of market share between
Japan and Hawaii, a route in all airlines with an average
occupancy around 80%. The forecast is that ANA will
start using the aircraft in 2018.
With this sale, Airbus ends with two years of drought
without new orders for the A380, a reason why the
company ocasionally considered changing the production
rate of the programme many times. The last
order of the world’s largest passenger airliner was
made by the leasing company Amedeo in February
2014, for 20 A380 aircraft. Since then the only news
of the programme had been cancellations. Airbus canceled
in July a $2 billion contract with the Japanese
airline Skymark for six A380 superjumbo airliners because
of problems with payment of the airline, and the
Saudi Kingdom Company who cancelled its requested
airplane.
This new order of ANA Holdings means an increase of
workload for the Andalusian aerospace, as several fir-
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