It was just recently that Boeing, the Airbus competitor reported that it was shaving production of the 747 jumbo’s latest version even as it has almost finalized launching a 406-seat version of the company’s 777 twinjet. During all of 2013, Airbus had not booked a single firm A380 order and has had 3 cancellations. It has sold a total of 259 of these aircraft. The company however, is confident that before the financial year is out, it will end up signing numerous deals and will avoid closing the year with more cancellations rather than orders.
In the current scenario, it is difficult for the company to predict when production levels will get back on track. What the company probably will have to do is trim the production of the Airbus 380 to below 30 aircraft per year and only concentrate on what has actually been sold. Though there has been no comment from the company about any impending review, it definitely does not want to strain its existing resources by building an aircraft for which there is currently no demand in the market.
With reference to 2015, the company said that it has some slots left towards the end of this year and that they will make every effort to fill them. They are pragmatic and will also adapt to the production levels and the cost structure will also be altered to fit in with the current demand. But it has to be remembered that the birth of the A380 had been fraught with management and technical woes. In 2011, there had been a sudden dip in demand due to the wing cracks that were discovered. It’s going to definitely take a lot of work to keep the impressive Airbus 380 flying high.