After years of ordering Boeing jets, All Nippon Airways orders Airbus A380s

ANA would become the first Japanese airline to fly Airbus’ biggest jet.

• ANA was the launch customer for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and has ordered 20 777-9s. But by ordering A380s, the company passed over Boeing’s competing four-engine aircraft, the 747-8.

• ANA’s wide-body jet fleet will no longer be an exclusively Boeing fleet, as Boeing now boasts on its website.

“ANA and Boeing share a long and successful partnership that spans more than five decades,” Boeing said in March 2014 when it announced the 777 order.

The four-engine double-deck A380s together are worth $1.3 billion at list prices. But it’s likely that ANA got the planes at a steep discount, since Airbus won no orders for the model during 2015.

Currently all but 11 of ANA’s 208-aircraft fleet are Boeing jets. The Airbus planes are A320s. ANA and other Japanese airlines have ordered 35 of Boeing’s 747s over the last 20 years.

If ANA had ordered 747s, it would have been a big boost for the Everett production line because Boeing has only won two net orders for the planes this year.

An ANA spokesman did not respond to an emailed query and Airbus did not have the order on its website, so confirmation will have to wait until the new year.

The 550-passenger A380s are to operate on ANA’s Japan-to-Hawaii service, according to the Nikkei story.

Honolulu is a important destination for Japanese tourists and is especially popular for weddings. Lines of stretch limousines can often be seen at Oahu beaches, with photographers shooting happy Japanese couples with Hawaii beaches and palms as backdrops.

The ANA order would be the second big Japanese break from fealty to Boeing, after Japan Airlines ordered 31 Airbus A350s in October 2013.

ANA and JAL, Japan’s two largest airlines, were early customers for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, and both suffered from the Dreamliners’ multiple delays. In particular, the two airlines grounded their own 787 fleets in January 2013 after lithium ion batteries overheated, even before the FAA grounded the global Dreamliner fleet.

The Boeing-Japan link has been strong for decades, partly because so many major Boeing aircraft assemblies are built by the “three heavies,” the Japanese corporations Fuji, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi.

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