Laurence Barron, president of Airbus China, has made frank comments to the press regarding the A380, giving us further insight into how things are going for the A380’s possibilities in China.
Barron stated that the A380 has not been an easy sell in China, telling reporters that the growth of high-speed railways in China is having an impact on airlines especially on the Beijing to Shanghai route. A high-speed train linking the two major Chinese cities is set to start operating in June. This should however put pressure on airlines to expand their international routes, boding well for A380 sales, but thus far China Southern Airlines Co Ltd is the only Chinese airline to have ordered the A380 with five on the books with the first being delivered in August this year.
Chinese airline traffic is still being largely driven by domestic expansion with cargo being the major part of this. International traffic, although not growing at the same rate as domestic traffic, is still showing steady growth but nothing on the scale of the Middle East carriers over the past decade. It seems that Airbus is still unable to answer the all important sales question - Why do I need an A380? You would have thought that the aircraft would be a perfect fit for Chinese carriers and in many ways it is, but the Chinese have never been ones to jump into things and put themselves at the top of order lists for new aircraft. It might well be that given a little more time and seeing the aircraft in action with China Southern might sway many to order the type.