DUBAI: Emirates is scheduled to receive its 100th Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger aircraft, by November 3, the Dubai carrier said on Wednesday.
Emirates has flown over 80 million passengers with its A380 fleet to over 45 destinations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, Europe, Middle and the Americas since the aircraft’s inaugural flight in 2008.
Included in Emirates’ A380 network is the world’s longest A380 flight – a non-stop Dubai-Auckland service that was introduced in March 2016.
“The A380 has been, and continues to be hugely popular among our customers, many of whom deliberately plan their travel so that they can fly on it,” Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline, said in a statement.
Despite the A380 milestone for Emirate, which is the biggest customer, the aircraft faces an uncertain future after Airbus said it was cutting down production on the double-decker super jumbo.
Airbus in July said that it was “considering the current order booking situation” as demand for the aircraft has waned as airline operators lean toward more efficient two-engine airplanes. Production for the A380 would go down to just 12 a year by 2018, from 27 the year before, and then to eight in 2019, the European plane maker said.
Emirate’s Clark earlier said that the Dubai carrier was looking into other aircraft options including the A380, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Boeing 777x which will enter the market in the early part of 2020.