The golf airline has resumed the fight for an A380 Neo. Emirates President Clark now feels taken more seriously by Airbus.
Emirates President Tim Clark has often stressed how much he regrets that Airbus never made an A380 Neo has built. As part of the ILA trade fair in Berlin in July, he already revealed that he hadn’t put the topic aside even following the end of production of the super jumbo. He said he was back in talks with Airbus regarding the possibility of a new superjumbo.
The Airbus A380 Neo would have new engines, composite materials, a smaller tail fin, improved wings and thus much lower fuel consumption. And Clark is still not giving up. “I’ve spoken to Airbus more than once,” he told the broadcaster CNN.
Ideal for London Heathrow and Amsterdam
According to the Emirates President, the aircraft manufacturer is currently concentrating on the A320 Neo family and the A350. When it came to the new A380, he had the feeling that “they were starting to take the issue a little more seriously”. According to the broadcaster, Clark said he might even get one even larger jet than the current A380 introduce.
“Imagine a composite wing and a fuselage that’s mostly composite,” Clark said. “Imagine engines that offer an improvement of 20 to 25 percent compared to today.” This would meet environmental requirements and make optimal use of slots as traffic grows over the next few decades, even at busy airports such as London Heathrow or Amsterdam.
Boeing 777-9 is not big enough for Emirates
Clark predicts that global aviation will not be able to keep pace with growth with the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 alone. And the upcoming Boeing 777-9 is not big enough for Emirates either. “In our configuration, it offers 364 seats compared to 484 in the A380 with our new Premium Economy,” says Clark. “Before there were even 519.”
With regard to new engines for the A380, Clark said there were “very interesting studies”. However, over the past 20 years, manufacturers have focused on further developing engines for smaller jets. So you try to get them to turn to the larger ones once more.
Costs of up to $20 billion
Clark admitted in Berlin in June that most other airlines just don’t have enough appetite for a new A380, which is likely to have a list price of over half a billion dollars. But with the increase in traffic, things might look different in 10 or 15 years, says the manager. Last already had various airlines reactivated their superjumbos. Lufthansa is also putting some back into operation.
When asked by aeroTELEGRAPH, Clark said as advice to Airbus: “If I were in your place, I would look at what needs to be done in private.” The Emirates President estimated the cost of such a program at 15 to 20 billion dollars.
