TOULOUSE: European aviation giant Airbus said Thursday it will stop making its superjumbo A380 in 2021 for lack of customers, abandoning the world’s biggest passenger jet and one of the aviation industry’s most ambitious and most troubled endeavors.
Barely a decade after the 500-plus-seat plane started carrying passengers, Airbus said in a statement that key client Emirates is cutting back its orders for the plane, and as a result, “we have no substantial A380 backlog and hence no basis to sustain production.”
The decision could hurt up to 3,500 jobs and already cost the plane maker 463 million euros in losses in 2018, Airbus said.
