Airbus does not expect to sell its wide-body, long-haul A380 aircraft in Latin America before 2010, a regional executive for the European plane maker said on Monday.

"Today, the 380 is an airplane that is still too big for the Latin American market," Rafael Alonso, senior vice president for customer affairs for Latin America, Caribbean and Spain, said at a news conference at an air industry show in Santiago.

"We'll see the 380 operating here at some point, but I don't think it will be before the end of the decade," he said.

He said airports in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo were already equipped to handle an A380, which is still in test flights and has 159 firm orders from 16 customers. He said more than a dozen other airports in the region could make fairly easy adaptations to be able to accommodate the aircraft.

He said if there was some consolidation of air carriers, in Brazil for example, there could be demand generated for the A380 in Latin America.

Airbus is very positive about the Latin American market, where there has been double-digit passenger growth in some countries in recent years, he added.

Alonso sees Chile's LAN Airlines and Aerolineas Argentinas as possibly purchasing A350s in the next few years as they renew fleets.

Alonso also said he sees Latin American carriers buying 1,000 planes with more than 100 seats in the next 20 years.