TOKYO – All Nippon Airways, Japan’s second-biggest airline, will scrap plans to buy Airbus’ A380, as it and bigger rival Japan Airlines slash capital spending, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Monday.
The Nikkei business daily had reported in July that Airbus would sell five A380 superjumbo aircraft to ANA, its first sale of the world’s biggest passenger plane to a Japanese airline.
The Yomiuri said ANA would cut capital spending by 100-200 billion yen from planned 900 billion yen in four years to March 2012 in the face of weakening demand worldwide.
The company has said it will postpone plans to choose new aircraft, with the A380 one candidate, but ANA spokesman Yuichi Murakoshi said the company has not decided to scrap its plans.
JAL will also cut spending by 100 billion yen from a planned 419 billion yen in the three years to March 2011, the paper said.
A sale in Japan would have been a big breakthrough for the European plane maker, a unit of European aerospace group EADS, as it has only about 4 percent of Japan’s market, compared with a half share elsewhere.
