Remember the unveiling of the 555-seat* multi-deck Airbus A380? The popping corks, the "France ascendant" chest-thumping, the joy. Look! Look! A big fat airplane! -- the most biggest French** achievement since, euuu, since the moustache comb. And Jack -- thought to be the president of France -- shops it around to any nation that includes complimentary miniature shampoos with his state-visit-cum-sales-call.

The Airbus A380 is the quintessential French project: state-subsidized and €1.5B over budget.

Without government assistance, the A380 would probably never have been built.

Billions of euros have been handed over in "launch aid loans" in recent years - under generous repayment terms - to assist Airbus's development of the A380. Airbus has downplayed the cost of the project despite the fact it could run as much as 1.5bn euros over budget.

"That sounds quite a lot of money until you realise you are dealing with a programme which is about 11bn euros," commercial director John Leahy told the BBC.

A mere 13.6% overage. A bagatelle. Well, except that enormities to scale are still enormities (here the equivalent of 6.7% of 2K5 turnover, scil., revenue).

But overage is the least of Airbus's problems.

TURBULENCE MAY LIE AHEAD FOR AIRBUS A380

PARIS November 22, 2005 (AFP) - The Airbus A380 superjumbo airliner might add to congestion at international airports because following aircraft might have to hang back to avoid air turbulence, the International Civil Aviation Organization has warned, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

An important A380 sales point is that it would reduce airport congestion.

The ICAO report said that the "significantly stronger" turbulence left by the superjumbo, compared to the draft left by smaller airliners, indicated that the minimum distance left by following aircraft when landing should be 10 nautical miles instead of five, and that the distance in the air should be 15 miles.

And there is the little detail of actually delivering its planes.

AIRBUS CONFIRMS SUPER-JUMBO DELAY

June 1, 2005 (BBC) - Airbus has confirmed that deliveries of its forthcoming A380 super-jumbo will be delayed by six months.

AIRBUS FACES FURTHER A380 HITCH

June 13, 2006 (BBC) - Production problems look set to trigger a further six month delay in deliveries of the Airbus A380 aircraft, parent company EADS has warned. Wiring problems have forced the firm to cut delivery targets to nine from an original target of 20 to 27 in 2007.

COSTLY DOUBTS OVER AIRBUS SUPERJUMBO

PARIS June 14, 2006 (IHT) - Shares in European Aeronautic Defense & Space, the parent company of Airbus, plummeted Wednesday, wiping €5.5 billion off its market value, as a fresh delay in the delivery of the new double-decker A380 airplane raised questions about the company's management and strategy.

That sounds quite a lot of money until you realise you are dealing with a program which is about €11B. Why the loss is merely 50% of the entire A380 operating budget. Pfft. Another bagatelle.

Airbus is betting its future on the A380, but the world's largest passenger jet has been dogged by problems, ranging from engine noise to weight and fuel consumption. The latest delays compound concerns about the company's direction that had already been raised after it was forced to admit that it erred in the design of another plane, the midsize A350, which it announced in 2004 to compete with Boeing's new Dreamliner 787.

Boeing shares rose $4.21, or 5.5 percent, to $81.19 in afternoon trading in New York on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Singapore Airlines, unhappy that its A380 orders would be delayed, announced it would buy 20 Boeing Dreamliners worth $4.52 billion, and take options on another 20 planes.

Analysts noted that internal fighting over the leadership of EADS and Airbus had possibly served to distract top managers in recent years from addressing the challenge posed by the Dreamliner, which has proved extremely popular with airlines. Airbus announced last month that it planned a radical redesign of its A350, a plane hastily developed to compete with the Dreamliner, after customers complained it compared poorly with the Boeing model, especially on fuel efficiency.

"There has been a lot of criticism that Airbus has been asleep," said Nick Cunningham, an aerospace analyst at the Panmure Gordon brokerage in London. "They massively underestimated how strong a product the 787 was going to be, and the only explanation for this seems to be that they have been too busy engaging in infighting." Rubel, at Jeffries, said it was still too early to write the A380's obituary. "It was just overhyped."

How quickly Airbus can recover will depend to a large extent on how Forgeard manages the situation. Analysts say that will not be an easy task, because the latest delay has dealt a serious blow to his reputation.

"It's hard not to put the blame on Forgeard," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia. During a conference call with analysts Wednesday, Forgeard was contrite. "I'm extremely sorry," he said. "I built my entire industrial career on building confidence with shareholders. This announcement comes as a big blow." But Forgeard played down the suggestion that his job might be at risk. "That is a shareholder decision," he said. "We have to find the right way forward rather than finger-pointing any responsibilities of the past."

SUPER-JUMBO PROBLEMS: AIRBUS DETAILS A380 DELAY

TOULOUSE, France June 15, 2006 (AFP) - The problems that have thrown the Airbus A380 superjumbo airliner into dramatic production delays and slashed the value of Airbus spark from the complexity of electrical systems specific to each customer, the company says.

The weak point in the production line is called work station 30. It is here that the framework of the aircraft is fitted out and electronic and electrical systems are wired up.

At the beginning of this year, Airbus tried to overcome the problems by bringing in extra teams from factories in Germany, Britain and Spain.

But an official for the CGT union at Airbus, Xavier Petrachi, commenting on Saturday on the discovery of broken cables in an aircraft, said that some of the people brought in as reinforcements sometimes "walked on" the cables.

Another company source, who declined to be named, said that the problem with the cabling "is not a problem of the quality of the products but of the interface between production and the design office, and now we are going to ask each factory to take the time needed to provide parts that are completely ready".

At Goldman Sachs brokers, analyst Sash Tulsa, commenting on market sentiment on the debacle said: "This is in our view very damaging both to the credibility of EADS management and also to Airbus' reputation for programme management."

AIRBUS CUSTOMERS COULD FIND A380 DELAYS COSTLY

PARIS June 16, 2006 (IHT) - Airlines that have made the Airbus A380 a crucial part of their business strategy are likely to face higher costs and a slowdown in their expansion plans, after Airbus revealed this past week that it would deliver fewer than half the 25 superjumbo jets to carriers by a January deadline.

The setback punched a hole in the finely calibrated flight schedules of carriers... It also may reduce airlines' ability to make better use of limited landing slots at busy airports, and could mean postponing the phaseout of less fuel-efficient jets at a time when fuel prices have soared. And it cuts the number of seats available on expensive long-haul routes...

"If we have to lease to fill the gaps, that'd be a direct cost," said Stephen Forshaw, a spokesman for Singapore Airlines. "There is also an opportunity cost - the failure to deliver on the capacity increase," he added. That means that where Singapore Airlines plans to replace a 375-passenger jet on a Singapore-to-London route with an A380 - configured with room for 480 passengers - it is now losing out on 105 potential seat sales.

Airports from London to Paris to Sydney have been widening taxi ways and adapting their facilities to accommodate the giant plane. A person in the aviation industry knowledgeable about relationships between airlines and airports said the delayed delivery would postpone the airports' ability to recoup some of those costs from the airlines.

Of course anyone who has ever bought anything from the French government, whether hard product or shinola, knows to expect a little disappointment, mistakes, controversy.

* This AFP report says 800 passegers. A month later this one says 850. Airbus gives an A380 passenger-load commensurate with its 555-seat capacity. Perhaps safety precluded plans for passegers standing in the aisles or hanging from the wings, accounting for the difference.
** Airbus S.A.S. is incorporated under French law and jointly owned by European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company EADS N.V. (EADS) (80%) and the British defence group BAE Systems plc (20%). However by contractual agreement all successes and good news are to be regarded as French, any mistakes, delays, or bad publicity are to be assigned equally between Britain and Germany. BAE is credibly rumored to be looking to bail.

PFFT (What is this?): Big fat airplane 5 | Point-of-sale promises 5 | On-time deliveries 0 | Rayonnement français 2

Bonjour,

Ils semblent , yanks , que vous n' êtes plus très "LIBERAUX"' quand il s'agit de dire que:

LE DREAMLINER 787 EST AFFECTE DE GRAVES DEFAUTS DE SON FUSELAGE SOI-DISANT REVOLUTIONNAIRE !

Source:Boieng

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Good luck to ? your country in Irak !!!