Launch Customers Will Receive Price Breaks On First Aircraft

Airbus has finally announced its plans to compensate its A380 launch customers -- Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines, and Qantas -- for delays encountered in the startup of production of the super-jumbo jet.

Delivery of the first production-spec A380s, originally slated for early 2006, has now been put off until almost a year from now -- with SIA slated to receive the first production A380. However, the delay is causing that airline, as well as Qantas and Malaysian Airlines, some aggravation.

To alleviate their concerns, Airbus will pay... but they're not saying how much.

"Remember, the airplane costs about $285 million a copy, so I think it is safe to say we are talking about a couple of million dollars," said Airbus Chief Commercial Officer John Leahy, as reported in Bloomberg. "But let's not get into detail; that's confidential between us and the customer."

That should help cool heads at those airlines, at least for a little while. Qantas has orders 12 of the aircraft, while Singapore Airlines has 10 firm orders on the A380 and options for 15 more.

As was reported in Aero-News last week, a proposed tour of those countries was delayed so Airbus could swap out two Trent 900 engines on the tour aircraft, the first test A380. While a positive spin was put on that delay at the time by SIA, the likely price break probably helped a little.

In all, Airbus reports 159 firm orders for the super-sized airliner -- capable of seating 555 passengers in "standard" configuration -- with another 100 options.

FMI: www.airbus.com