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How much is the airbus a380?

Short answer

The Airbus A380's last list price was $445.6 million (as of January 2018), the highest in Airbus's range, which stopped publishing prices that year. Airlines paid considerably less due to standard discounts, and a used A380 now sells for a small fraction of that figure since production ended in 2021.

How much is the airbus a380?
Qantas Airbus A380 taking off from HeathrowFoto: Adrian Pingstone (dominio público)

The last list price

Airbus last published its list prices in January 2018, and in that table the A380 was listed at $445.6 million, the most expensive aircraft in the range. Since then the manufacturer stopped releasing those figures, so that remains the only official data available (as of January 2018). It should be taken as a theoretical reference: in the industry, discounts off the list price are standard practice and can approach half the nominal value on large orders or for launch customers.

What airlines actually paid

The real price of each A380 depended on the size of the order, the cabin configuration, the engines chosen, and the timing of the deal. Emirates, with 123 units, secured terms that were never made public but that analysts placed well below list price. On top of that figure came the interiors, which in an aircraft with suites, a bar and showers could add tens of millions more, plus spare parts, crew training and airport adaptations.

An aircraft worth much less today

With production halted in 2021 and only 251 units built, the A380 secondhand market is very narrow. Several aircraft barely ten years old have been scrapped because their engines and parts were worth more than the whole aircraft, and those that have changed hands did so for a small fraction of their original price. Meanwhile, keeping one flying still costs as much as when it was new: fuel for four engines, large crews and major overhauls. For Airbus, the cost was far greater than that of any single unit: the program's development is estimated to have exceeded €25 billion, an investment that sales never recovered.

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