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Airbus Group SE’s A380 superjumbo program hit fresh turbulence after
Singapore Airlines Ltd.—the aircraft’s first buyer and currently its second-largest customer—said it won’t renew the lease for its first plane.
The lease on the A380 expires in October 2017 and “we have decided not to extend it,” Singapore Airlines said Wednesday.
The decision isn’t a fatal blow for the program, Airbus’s biggest and costliest jet. But it is another symbolic hit for the double-deck aircraft, for which Airbus has struggled to find customers after investing about $15 billion to develop.
Airbus said in July that it would
slash production of the A380 to 12 planes a year in 2018 from 27 last year. The backlog of A380s to be delivered has eroded during years of no or few orders.
The A380’s size has become its disadvantage as airlines prefer relatively smaller planes such as the Airbus A350 and rival
Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner that can fly nonstop to their ultimate destinations, bypassing large hubs such as London Heathrow and Singapore’s Changi Airport.
Airbus will again start incurring losses building A380 planes at the lower production rate, the plane maker based in Toulouse, France, has said. Last year was the first in which Airbus didn’t lose money on the A380 program since it embarked on developing the superjumbo jet in 2000.
The Singapore flag carrier currently operates 19 of the jets. The first five were taken on a 10-year lease deal. “Decisions will be made on the four others later,” a spokesman for Singapore Airlines said"
