(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Confirming growing demand for the world's largest airliner, a top executive of Emirates airline said the company would be willing to buy another 40 Airbus A380 jets, but that the fast-growing Dubai airport where the airline is based is short of room for them.
Emirates President Tim Clark had already said the airline wants another 30 A380s, on top of 90 already on order.
Increasing that number to 40 suggests demand is rising for the A380 made by the Airbus unit of Europe's Eads.
Emirates, by far the largest customer for the A380, whose list price is $390 million, had 23 of the superjumbo jets in service at the end of August.
Clark, speaking at an industry conference in Seattle, said there are seven A380s waiting in Hamburg for delivery as part of the normal deliver schedule.
He is not worried about his airline's strong growth being affected by recession in Europe, slowing growth in China and unrest in the Middle East. Dubai, he said, "is a honey pot. There is no place better, except maybe China."
Clark has been ratcheting up his demand for the 525-seat A380 jet since he surprised the aviation world in 2010 by saying the airline could buy 120 of the aircraft. Clark said it expects the proposed $45 billion merger of BAE Systems and Airbus parent EADS won't distract the company from delivering planes on time and could, in fact, be a positive.
Clark said he doesn't think the distraction will affect the 90 Airbus A380 superjumbo jets the airline has on order.
"Good luck," he said of the merger.
Regarding the development of a revamped Boeing Co 777, Clark said that the first of its fleet of 777-300-ER jets are due to be retired in 2017, and Emirates would like to replace them with the updated 777, which promises much greater efficiencies.
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