Says It Wants Airliner To Prove Itself First

More trouble for the Airbus A380 program... as Virgin Atlantic announced Friday it will delay deliveries of its six superjumbo jets until 2013, in order to give Airbus four extra years to work out any bugs with the plane.

While the news is discouraging for Airbus -- one could argue it is thinly-veiled criticism of Airbus's ability to deliver a trouble-free plane to early customers -- it is also something of a win for the European planemaker. There was speculation Virgin would cancel its orders outright, after what had originally been reported to the carrier as a six-month delay in the delivery of the first A380 in Virgin colors grew to 22 months.

The BBC reports the airline says it still has confidence in the A380... but it wants the plane to prove itself in commercial service for several years before it puts its own A380s into service.

Virgin Atlantic will extend leases on a number of Boeing 747-400s to cover for the delay.

Virgin is the first airline to reach an agreement with Airbus on compensation or other arrangements after the latest delay to the A380 program was announced last month.

Other airlines affected by the delays -- most notably Emirates, the largest A380 customer with 43 planes ordered -- are still locked in talks with Airbus... and have threatened to cancel their orders outright.

FMI: www.virginatlantic.com, www.airbus.com