DUBAI - Dubai’s flagship airline Emirates said on Thursday its multi-billion-dollar deal for Airbus A380s superjumbos stands despite an announced further delay in delivery. “Emirates has not received any official notification from Airbus about a further delay in delivery apart from what we heard in the news,” the airline’s spokesman Boutros Boutros told AFP.The Middle East’s fastest growing carrier “is not considering cancelling” the deal at the moment, he said after European aerospace group EADS admitted Thursday that its Airbus superjumbo airliner was set for further delays.
Boutros said Emirates is waiting for the final schedule of deliveries to be announced within four weeks to see how it affects the expected delivery of 43 aircraft ordered by the carrier -- the largest single order of the double-decker plane that is designed to carry between 555 and 840 passengers. In its statement, EADS said it had “not finalized the schedule of deliveries nor the financial impact of any delays”, but it said it would provide more information within four weeks.
Emirates had said in June that a further delay in the delivery of the A380 superjumbo would hurt expansion plans and future revenue.