Cites Weak Demand Out Of New York... But Strong Demand From Toronto

The largest customer for the Airbus A380 has pulled service on its first route serviced by the massive airliner. Dubai-based Emirates announced Wednesday it will replace two A380s operating on the Dubai-New York route with twin-engine Boeing 777-300ERs, due to dwindling passenger numbers that made it hard to justify flying the larger planes.

"Effective June 1st, two of Emirates' Airbus A380 aircraft, currently operating on one of the two daily Dubai-New York JFK services, will be redeployed to the three-times weekly Dubai-Toronto service and to one of the two daily Dubai-Bangkok services," the airline told Emirates Business. "As the global economy has affected international air travel, this aircraft redeployment was based solely on a change in capacity demands in these three markets."

The Dubai-Toronto service has seen impressive growth since it was launched in October 2007, Emirates President Tim Clark told Agence-France Presse. The airline plans to reevaluate JFK for A380 service "when economic conditions improve," Clark added.

The change results in 132 fewer seats available per daily flight operated by a 777 instead of an A380, the airline said. Emirates' superjumbos have 489 seats divided throughout three classes, including 14 first-class suites.

"[T]this change in aircraft will not affect any other US services as the airline still plans to increase the Los Angeles and San Francisco services to a daily frequency beginning from May 1, 2009," the airline added.

Emirates also reaffirmed its commitment to the A380, after a German magazine reported airline officials recently presented a laundry-list of problems to the planemaker, outlining a number of defects which have caused breakdowns that grounded Emirates' four A380s a total of 500 hours to date. While Emirates didn't deny the facts of the report, the airline did stress it plans to keep its remaining 54 orders for A380s on the books.

"We take the criticism and the feedback from Emirates very seriously," an Airbus spokeswoman told Reuters. "We are doing everything we can to overcome the issues and we are working very closely with our customers to solve that."

FMI: www.emirates.com, www.airbus.com