December 8, 2003
All Nippon Airways, Asia's second biggest airline,
said on Monday it had not ruled out buying Airbus's
A380 superjumbo, despite a newspaper report that it
was not considering the jet. The Times newspaper in
Britain said ANA was not interested in buying the
A380.
"It is true that we have no plans to order the jet at
present, but the A380 is one future option for our
fleet and is still under consideration," said ANA
spokesman Yasuo Taki.
France-based Airbus's 555-seat A380, seen as a
high-risk project a few years ago, has garnered over
100 orders from nearly a dozen airlines and is due to
begin flying in 2006, just as demand for jet airliners
is expected to recover.
Some analysts say that securing orders from Asia's two
biggest airlines -- Japan Airlines and ANA -- will be
the key to the A380 project's commercial viability.
The newspaper said ANA was concerned about the risk of
purchasing an aircraft of unprecedented size and it
would stick with rival Boeing's 747 for at least the
next 10 years.
"The big question is whether the customer is happy.
Already when I take a ride on a big 747 we have to
wait with a lot of people in the lounge and boarding
is a crazy stress. Baggage and passenger handling is
chaos," Keisuke Okada, ANA's vice-president for
corporate planning was quoted as saying.
Japan is the world's biggest market for commercial
jets outside the United States, and one of the few
remaining strongholds for Boeing, whose market share
has been slowly eroded in recent years by Airbus.
Airbus has been aggressively promoting the A380 to
Japanese airlines, but has not yet secured any orders.
SO BOYS AND GIRLS ... WE WILL SEE ...
greets
flying cobra
News about ANA plans
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Allnipponairways
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Allnipponairways
- Posts: 360
- Joined: 17 Oct 2003, 00:00
- Location: japan & Belgium