Airbus Prepares To Finalize A380 Deal With Emirates Airline, In Wake Of Sinai Crash

The French airplane manufacturer Airbus was close to signing a deal Sunday with Gulf air carrier Emirates for updated A380 passenger aircraft. News of the deal came one week after an Airbus passenger plane carrying 224 passengers and crew from Egypt to Russia crashed over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

"We are working with Airbus with regard to trying to improve the A380," Emirates President Tim Clark told CNBC Sunday. "There is a template on the drawing board and they are ready to go. They've just got to get the commercial aspects of it done."

The updated A380 will be more technologically advanced aircraft. Emirates has long been a faithful customer of Airbus, becoming the French company's top client for A380s in 2013 after purchasing 50 of the super-jumbo planes, CNBC reported.

Clark was still undecided on the Airbus super-jumbos and had been considering choosing U.S. rival Boeing instead, Bloomberg reported. “People haven’t got a true measure of what this thing will do,” he said, adding, “The ramp-up rate needs to be pushed a bit, it’s taking them forever to get this thing up.”

Airbus made headlines following the crash of one of its Russian passenger planes flying from Egypt to Russia Oct. 31. The plane split in two in flight, killing all 224 aboard.

A full investigation into what caused the plane to crash has not yet been completed. Preliminary evidence indicated, however, the Islamic militant group known as the Islamic State or ISIS may have planted a bomb in the hold before takeoff, as retaliation for Russian airstrikes against ISIS in Syria.

Rumors of faulty Airbus technology first circulated following the crash after the widow of one of the co-pilots told news outlets her husband had complained about issues with the plane.