Malaysian får ikke solgt sine A380 - Curt Lewis

Malaysia Airlines to keep Airbus A380s after sales bid fails

Malaysia Airlines (Mas) has delayed plans to sell some of its Airbus A380 jumbo jets, and will now keep all six of them, at least until 2018, after retiring its fleet of Boeing 777s, its chief executive said.

The Kuala Lumpur-based carrier has tried without success to find a buyer for the planes for the past year. The sales bid was part of a restructuring plan to cut costs, which also involved Mas withdrawing from several long-haul European routes.

After accelerating the retirement of its much older Boeing 777-200 fleet, the airline has decided to keep the A380s in service until it gets the first of its new Airbus A350 wide-body jets, Christoph Mueller said ahead of the Singapore Airshow.

"We need them for the long-haul market," said Mr Mueller of the A380s, which the airline flies only to London. "We are still evaluating what we want to do with the A380. We have six and we will keep them at least until 2018, when we get the first A350."

Mas is also evaluating if it needs two more A350s to add to the four that it will get from leasing companies, Mr Mueller said, adding that these planes would serve medium-haul, intra-Asia Pacific routes that the airline would focus on as part of its post-restructuring strategy.