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.

FMI: www.airbus.com