Singapore Airlines weighs cost of delays in deliveries of A380s

SIA was originally due to receive its first A380 early this year, but last month Airbus acknowledged that further delays in the program were possible. It was the third such announcement by Airbus and its parent, EADS, since June last year.

Stephen Forshaw, SIA's vice-president for public affairs, said that although SIA still did not know what effect the latest delays would have, the airline is already missing out on growth on some routes because of late delivery of its new planes.

"It's not that we are in a position where we've had to stall the introduction of new routes, or anything like that," he said.

But SIA's Singapore-London route, for example, is served daily by three Boeing 747s that the airline wants to replace with the larger A380s.

"We're talking about the inability to grow that capacity by an extra 100 seats [per flight]," he said.

Yesterday, a source close to the matter said the directors of EADS would confer today, and that afterwards Airbus and EADS could announce further delays in deliveries of the A380.

"Until we hear from Airbus as to the delay that we're looking at, we really can't assess the impact," Forshaw said.