Could End Nearly Year-Long Drought For Orders For The Superjumbo

It could be a major gamble, but it could pay off big. Doric Leasing CEO Mark Lapidus said in a recent interview that the company plans to place an order for 20 A380 superjumbo airplanes with confidence that clients can be found to operate them.

Airbus has not taken a single order for an A380 this year. Lapidus said he expects to know who the first client would be early in 2014 after placing the order, but did not say who any of the potential clients would be.

The order would be the largest single contract for the A380 since Emirates ordered 32 of the massive airplanes in 2010. Lapidus said that the global economy is no longer in a "great financial recession," and that airlines will again be looking at the biggest airplanes it can find to fly trunk routes. "We're on a crest of the wave where airlines are starting to look for growth in their business models," he said.

With most operators using two or three larger airplanes to serve a given city pair, Lapidus said that Doric would only need a "handful" of clients to make the model work.

FMI: www.doric.com