Should Be Ironed Out By 26th Airframe

It appears word Airbus this week had solved a series of technical glitches with stubborn wiring harnesses on its A380 megajumbo may have been a tad optimistic... as the European planemaker said Thursday problems had been solved on the first aircraft only.

Reuters reports Gerhard Puttfarcken, head of Airbus' German operations, told a German newspaper this week Airbus had solved its wiring problems with the A380. Numerous news outlets, including ANN, quickly hailed the news as a long-awaited step in the righr direction for the beleagured planemaker.

Puttfarcken clarified his comments Thursday, however... stating Airbus had only solved the wiring problems on the aircraft scheduled for delivery to launch customer Singapore Airlines later this year, but work remains on other airframes.

That's good news for Singapore Airlines... but questions remain for subsequent airframes.

"We are creating the conditions so that in future there will be one common platform from all the sites," Puttfarcken told a briefing for French journalists Thursday.

While it's not the major revelation many originally thought, the news is still a step in the right direction for Airbus as it attempts to regain credibility for its oft-delayed A380 program.

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 means for the moment, Airbus will have to rework the problematic wiring harnesses on each airframe.

FMI: www.airbus.com