Big, beautiful and busted: A380 becomes an unwanted baby

Two years since its last order, Airbus is faced with the prospect of shutting down its A380 production, as the world's largest passenger carrier becomes an unwanted baby for global airlines.
The aircraft, which can seat 575 people in a four class configuration and 853 in a single class, comes for a not-so-modest price of $445.6 million a piece. The development programme, which is is estimated to have cost $25 billion, began in earnest in 2000, though planning for the aircraft began as early as 1988.

The first flight of the A380 jumbo took place in 2005 and the aircraft entered commercial service two years later, in 2007. Since then, it has received 317 orders from 18 airlines, of which 222 have been delivered. However, its last order was for three aircraft by Japan's ANA, placed in January 2016.

An A380 takes off from or lands somewhere in the world every two minutes, with more than 300 flights per day. Only 13 airlines operate an A380, which takes eight months to assemble and has carried 190 million passengers since its induction in 2007.

Of the 317 orders, 142 or nearly 45 per cent, were from Emirates. Of the 222 aircraft delivered, 101 were to Emirates, representing more than 45 per cent of the deliveries.

Singapore Airlines was the first airline to fly the A380 and currently has 21 aircraft in service. India's now-defunct airline, Kingfisher Airlines, was the only Indian air carrier to order A380, when it had placed an order of five aircraft at the 2005 Paris Air Show.

The A380 has been plagued by problems right from the start, not the least of which was a cost overrun of nearly 150 per cent and delivery delays that started from its first order to SIA. In 2011, four years the first aircraft was inducted, cracks were discovered in the wings of a Qantas operated A380, that prompted the European Aviation Safety Agency to order an inspection of A380 aircraft in service.