IAG says its A380 choices too high priced, watching to lease second hand

British Airways owner IAG (ICAG.L) is keeping talks on leasing further A380s second hand considering that it believes the choices it has to buy extra of the Airbus superjumbo are too highly-priced, its chief government mentioned on Monday.

The transfer is a part of a strategy of growing the percentage of leased aircraft global airlines team (IAG) has within its fleet, Willie Walsh informed the Airline Economics aircraft finance convention in Dublin.

"we've choices on A380s ... However we're not going to exercise them on the grounds that they are too high priced," he stated.

"We see the alternative of leasing them 2d hand as an attractive possibility."

Walsh said IAG was once also fascinated with leasing or purchasing more 2nd-hand Boeing (BA.N) 777-300ERs.

"We see going forward usually a greater mixture of leased in the fleet than we’ve mainly had," he mentioned.

Leasing has more often than not been obvious as an costly option via enormous based carriers, which will usually relaxed significant reductions on new aircraft orders.

But airways are increasingly watching to lessors to speedily add and subtract potential at short detect to check market demand, specialists informed the conference.

"The adversity to off-stability sheet leasing from the mega carriers of the world is long gone endlessly. Leasing is here to remain," Steven Udvar-Hazy of Air hire manufacturer (AL.N) stated in accordance with Walsh's comments.

Walsh stated IAG was looking at adding an extra 5 - 6 A380s to the British Airways fleet, however that the jet could also be suitable for Spain-situated crew airline Iberia.

He said the aircraft used to be triumphant for British Airways on routes the place demand was high nevertheless it failed to always have to operate generic flights, therefore freeing up a slot at London's overcrowded Heathrow airport.

He stated there was once a restrict to IAG's urge for food as a result of the inflexibility of the aircraft, which he mentioned perfect reasonably few routes.

The 544-seat A380 has been a gradual seller for manufacturer Airbus (AIR.PA) and is untested on the 2nd-hand market.

The primary leased A380 aircraft are set to come back to the market in 2017 and Malaysia airways can be watching to dump some A380s because it restructures.

"there isn't a time period, it will rely upon when aircraft end up available, we're now not in an instantaneous hurry," Walsh instructed journalists on the sidelines of the convention, including IAG had already held talks with lessors.

The A380s would not be a replacement for the 747s British Airways presently operates. Walsh stated the low oil price supposed the service was once now not going to accelerate retirement of the jet. Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) final week retired its ultimate 747s.