TOULOUSE, FRANCE ¨C Airbus Group NV raised the prospect of discontinuing its A380 superjumbo as soon as 2018, the first admission that it may have misjudged the market for the double-decker after failing to find a single airline buyer this year.
While Airbus will break even on the plane in 2015, 2016 and 2017, that outlook doesn¡¯t hold for 2018, forcing the company to either offer new engines to make the A380 more attractive or discontinue the program, Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm told investors at a meeting in London on Wednesday.
His comments come as 2014 shapes up to be the first since the doubledecker entered service without a new airline customer. Its only buyer was a leasing company that has yet to line up a single carrier to take any of the 20 planes it ordered. The backlog remains as thin as it is fragile, highlighted by the cancellation of six jets ordered by Japan¡¯s Skymark Airlines Inc., with two close to handover.
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