“Airbus will be obliged to make a decision one way or the other in 2015,” said Yan Derocles, an analyst at Oddo Securities in Paris, who estimates an engine upgrade may cost Airbus 2 billion euros ($2.47 billion) because of work required on the wing.
An engine upgrade would take about four years, according to Derocles. The A380 now comes with a choice of engines either by Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc (RR/) or a joint venture between General Electric Co. (GE) and United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney.
The A380’s lackluster demand contrasts with a boom in orders for other models. Airbus’s bestseller remains its A320 family of single-aisle jets, which it made even more popular by offering new engines. The same concept added momentum to the A330 wide-body jet.