DUBAI, 5 October 2006 — Dubai-based carrier Emirates remained tight-lipped yesterday over the options it is considering to offset the impact of a further 10-month delay in deliveries of the Airbus A380 superjumbo.
“It’s too early to say what the impact will be. We are reviewing all our options,” Emirates President Tim Clark told AFP yesterday, a day after the announcement of a further delay in deliveries of the aircraft.
Clark had said in a statement Tuesday that the European manufacturer had notified Emirates — the biggest single client of the A380 — of the new delay, saying that the first aircraft would not arrive until August 2008.
“This is a very serious issue for Emirates and the company is now reviewing all its options,” he said. But the Middle East’s fastest-growing airline declined to be drawn on its strategy following the new delay to its multi-billion-dollar order.
“Emirates is satisfied with its statement,” an airline spokesman who requested anonymity told AFP, adding that the company “does not want to discuss the issue” in public. But another airline official ruled out any imminent cancellation of the order for 43 aircraft in comments published yesterday.
“Compensation is one of several options being weighed ... (Emirates) was not looking at canceling the deal,” the airline’s divisional vice president for corporate communication, Mike Simon, told the UAE daily Khaleej Times. Simon told another UAE daily, Gulf News: “It will definitely have an impact on our future growth plans.”
April 2007 had been the due date for delivery of the first A380 — the double-decker plane which is designed to carry between 555 and 840 passengers.
The company is spending billions of dollars on expanding its fleet, which currently consists of 92 aircraft. In November 2005, it announced a new order for 42 Boeing-777s at a total cost of $9.7 billion.
The state-owned carrier said on its website that its fleet expansion will allow it to double the number of services it operates and destinations it serves, as well as enabling it to operate non-stop on long-haul routes.
Emirates, which in 2004-5 posted a 49 percent increase in net profits to $708 million, has a current order book of 123 aircraft, with a total value of some $33 billion.
The government of Dubai has also been constructing a new terminal in the emirate’s international airport to accommodate the superjumbo. Two boarding gates in the old terminal were also modified to cater for the A380 and were tested during the 9th International Aerospace Exhibition held in Dubai in 2005. Dubai is forecasting that 76 million passengers will travel through its airports by 2009 and that traffic will grow by 14 to 20 percent a year.
Emirates says it operates more than 50 percent of flights in and out of Dubai, and aims to increase the proportion to 70 percent by 2010. In 2005, 5.4 million tourists visited Dubai, and the authorities aim to triple this number by 2010.
