Reconsiders Goal Of 45 Deliveries Per Year By 2010

Airbus CEO Tom Enders revealed Tuesday that the company's challenges with the A380 superjumbo may not be over. The Associated Press reports Enders was on hand for the opening of an Airbus material and logistics center in Dubai when he announced a "major review" of the A380's delivery schedule is underway.

Dubai is headquarters of Emirates, which is by far the largest customer so far for the A380, with 58 of the planes on order.

Airbus has said its goal is to turn out 45 A380s per year by 2010. Enders said Tuesday that won't be easy. He stopped short of saying the goal in unattainable, adding that the review of the delivery schedule at this stage is "standard practice."

Stefan Schaffrath, the company spokesman through whom Ender's remarks were relayed, backed away from an earlier quote -- attributed to Enders -- that Airbus is "confident more than ever" about the program.

Schaffrath now tells The Associated Press Airbus is reviewing whether workers and suppliers are ready for the change from individual plane production to full industrialization, and whether the delivery schedule can be maintained.

The main problem facing Airbus concerns the need to rewire A380s as they come off the line. As ANN reported, the wiring issue stemmed from incompatible design specs used by Airbus' French and German plants -- harnesses made in one plant, did not line up with the fuselage segments produced by another.

Airbus hopes to have a common design platform in place by the time the 26th airframe is manufactured... which is still a long time off. Until then, the planes come off the assembly line with the original, faulty design... which then must be reworked, adding time.

Another, less significant A380 challenge lies in delivering the last two of six planes ordered by launch customer Singapore Airlines, then resetting to build a different cabin layout specified by Emirates and Qantas.

Enders has said increasing A380 production is the greatest ongoing challenge for Airbus. He adds that the workload to build one A380 is equivalent to building eight of the planemaker's highly-popular single-aisle A320s.

In more positive news Tuesday, Airbus announced it has received a "letter of acceptance" from Tunisair, covering the purchase of 10 single-aisle A320s, three widebody A330s, and three long-range A350 XWBs, still under development. The deal would be worth almost $2 billion at list prices.

FMI: www.airbus.com