DUBAI // Emirates airline, which expects to receive its fourth Airbus A380 later on Tuesday, sees a delay in the delivery of a fifth plane next year, its president said. "It should have been by the end of March but it will now probably be mid-April," the president of Emirates, Tim Clark said on Tuesday. The delivery of the airline's fourth Airbus A380 will take place by year-end as planned, he said.
"It comes today. It leaves Hamburg at 1 pm ... it will probably arrive around midnight," Mr Clark said. Airbus, the planemaking unit of European aerospace group EADS, has been racing against the clock to reach its target of a dozen deliveries in 2008 as it recovers from a series of setbacks and two years of production delays. However, Airbus warned recently it would miss its 2009 target of 21 superjumbo deliveries by a "couple" of planes.
Emirates, the biggest customer of the A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft, received the first of 58 superjumbos in July. *Reuters
