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Emirates cancels order for 10 Airbus A340 planes

Emirates airline has cancelled an order for 10 long-range Airbus A340-600 planes plus the option of 10 more.

" said the decision had been taken because the Dubai-based carrier believed the A340 lacked the technology offered by more up-to-date planes..."

This just abouts destroys the A340 line of aircraft for Airbus.

Ouch. And yesterday Virgin "deferred" their A380 orders. For you kids out there ,deferred means that contractually it is hard to actually cancel the order, but its real easy to push the delivery date off into the far,far future. Airbus gets to say that they have the order, Virgin gets avoid paying for an aircraft they dont want anymore.

And don't forget, every one of these changes causes the number of A380s they need to "break even" to increase. That in turn makes it all that more difficult to raise money to build the A350.

All eyes are on Emirates and Singapore Airlines, who together hold 75% of the existing A380 orders. If either of them start to walk away, the A380 will take up the role of "the new Concorde". Cool, stately, but ultimately a money loser on a grand scale.

Posted @ October 27, 2006 08:52 AM | Current Affairs

Posted by: dan in dallas at October 27, 2006 02:21 PM