Tue, Jun 10, 2008
Insists A350 XWB Will Deliver On-Time
In March 2007, when Boeing was still insisting the Dreamliner
would roll out on schedule, Airbus chief operating officer and head
of sales John Leahy caught flak for predicting it would be six
months late. Of course, what then looked like competitive
back-biting at the time looks downright prescient in hindsight.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports Leahy told an interviewer
at last week's International Air Transport Association membership
meeting in Istanbul that Boeing failed to learn from mistakes his
own company made in rolling out the A380 superjumbo. That plane was
delayed two years, due in large part to issues with complicated
wiring harnesses.
Leahy says Airbus, on the other hand, has learned from Boeing's
recent experience with the Dreamliner, and promises the schedule
set for development of the A350 XWB has plenty of slack to
accommodate the unforeseen.
"I think we learned that on the A380," Leahy said. "It was a
very painful tuition. We needed to have a slower ramp-up, better
program management and better coordination of the supply chain.
Boeing didn't learn those lessons from us, and so it's repeating
the mistakes with the 787. We have been watching very
carefully."
Well, perhaps Boeing has learned something as well. Pat
Shanahan, 787 program chief, said last month the revised Dreamliner
schedule is more conservative and has built-in "margins" in case
other issues come up. The planemaker is also sticking firm to its
revised schedule... which calls for the first 787 to be powered-on
later this month.
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