ANA Group set to acquire three A380s

ANA - All Nippon Airways (NH, Tokyo Haneda) parent ANA Holdings will acquire three A380-800s from Airbus Industrie (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) company sources have told Japan's Kyodo news agency. The aircraft are due for delivery from 2018 onwards and will be used on the carrier's popular Tokyo-Honolulu route.

 Though not officially confirmed, the deal is believed to be linked to ANA's Rehabilitation Plan for bankrupt LCC Skymark Airlines (BC, Tokyo Haneda) which gained creditor support over a rival proposal from Intrepid Aviation and Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) in August last year. 

 Japanese media reports at the time said Airbus, which had originally planned to back Intrepid/Delta's proposal, was swung to ANA's at the last minute after the Group agreed to acquire some, if not all, of Skymark's eight Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered A380-800s.

 ANA's widebody passenger fleet currently entails forty B767-300(ER)s, twenty-eight B777-200(ER)s, seven B777-300s, twenty-two B777-300(ER)s, thirty-five B787-8s, and nine B787-9s. 

ch-aviation - Ton Jochems - BRU