PerthNorg

Bet Geoff Dixon managed to screw enormous compensation out of Airbus for this deal (A$104m recently for a previous major delay). List price of the A380 might be US$300m+, but Qantas will probably not have paid even two-thirds of that. Almost wipes out the bad news this week from Virgin Atlantic’s indefinite deferrals of their 12 A380s, cancellation of their entire order for 20 A340-600s (US$4bn+), and Emirates’ confirmation they can walk away from the whole deal, all 45 A380 orders, without penalty. No wonder there’ll be a few extra A380 production slots available from 2012-2013.

Wonder when the first NEW A380 customer will come along (Qantas was first to place an order in 2000), or if they’ll be too late and so there’ll be no more plane left to buy…?