Emirates has no interest in the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental as it views the Airbus A380 as the only very large airliner that can deliver the capacity and performance it requires.
The Dubai carrier’s president Tim Clark says he is not in talks about an order for Boeing’s largest aircraft but admits that “Boeing is quite keen to discuss it with us”.
He adds that while Boeing and General Electric have worked hard to improve the 747-8I’s performance, “it won’t do the job that a 500-seater A380 will do. That’s not to say that if you wanted a smaller capacity, that you wouldn’t use a 747-8I, but the 777X is coming along and that’s got brilliant economics, two engines etc,” he says.
“There’s nothing out there that resembles what the A380 can do, at all, for us.”
Emirates considered ordering the 747-8I back in the 2007 and pushed Boeing to focus on a slightly shorter stretch to maximise the aircraft’s payload/range performance. However Boeing opted for a longer stretch to increase passenger capacity further.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
