James Wallace of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting today on Airbus and notes a Wall Street Journal report that quotes Tom Enders of Airbus saying:

 

He disclosed that the A380 superjumbo program remains troubled by teething problems in its industrial phase, and that the company now expects just 18 deliveries of the world’s largest passenger aircraft this year, down from a previous target of 21 that was revised from 24 last year.

I optimistically forecast that Airbus would *increase* its deliveries over their projected schedule in this post. 

That’s a significant reduction in deliveries for Airbus and the A380.  What it means is that Airbus will suffer financially on that program even more now that they will be unable to receive the forecasted revenue for 3 of the A380 deliveries.  The list price fo the A380 is about $320 million for each aircraft.  Even with significant discounts, that 3 aircraft reduction in the schedule means reduced revenue of nearly $1billion. 

It would seem that, this time, the problems are that the computer models for production of the aircraft did not take into account the effects of gravity on the aircraft structure itself and, accordingly, some assemblies and parts won’t fit correctly on production aircraft. 

Filed under: Airline Fleets, Airline News by ajax