Singapore Airlines, the world’s second-largest carrier by market value, said it may order Airbus SAS’s A350-1000 jet as the European planemaker plans improvements in range and payload.

 

The airline is also awaiting details of enhancements to Boeing Co.’s competing 777-300ER before deciding which model to purchase, Chief Executive Officer Goh Choon Phong said yesterday at a briefing at Airbus’s headquarters in Toulouse, France. He declined to discuss how many planes the carrier may buy.

 

Airbus in June said it would delay the introduction of the A350-1000 so it could make changes including the use of improved Rolls-Royce Holding Plc Trent XWB engines. Singapore Air has 20 of the smaller -900 variants on order, and it also signed a deal for eight 777-300ERs in August because of Asia’s growing regional and long-haul travel.

 

Goh also said that the carrier was concerned about a potential economic slowdown and the possibility of tighter credit following Moody’s Investors Service Inc. downgrade of Credit Agricole SA and Societe Generale SA, France’s second- and third-largest banks.

 

“The most strategic concern is how the economy is going to go,” he said. “The recent downgrade of banks in France is a concern -- the impact, if any, on the liquidity of banks, and whether there’s a contagious effect on the rest of the economy.”