Emirates Airline could not wait until this week at Farnborough to order more Engine Alliance GP7200-powered Airbus A380 airliners. Instead it chose last month’s ILA airshow in Berlin as the stage on which to announce its plans to acquire a further 32 of the widebodies. The additional aircraft, valued at an $11.5 billion catalog price and to be delivered by 2017, will bring its A380 fleet to 90, representing 38.5 percent of the 243-strong order book. This booking well exceeds the 20 orders from all sources that Airbus chief operating officer for customers John Leahy had predicted in May when doubling his A380 sales forecast for 2010.
Two years after receiving its first A380, Emirates accepted its tenth last month. It also has 70 A350s on order among 95 other aircraft worth a nominal $48 billion from Airbus and Boeing. The Arab airline serves eight cities with the A380 and plans to add two more by October 1, when it also expects to resume New York operations.
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