The EADS Airbus A380 delays
Economist, on a subject we touched on the other day:
THE A380 passenger jet was meant to take Airbus to new heights of success. Instead, the problems experienced by the new super-jumbo are dragging the European consortium down. This week Airbus announced a delay of up to seven months for deliveries of the huge 555-seat airliner, which is set to enter service next year. In response, the value of shares in EADS, Airbus’s parent company, fell by 26% on a single day, June 14th, wiping €5.5 billion ($6.9 billion) off the value of the firm.
Airbus’s announcement went down particularly badly with the markets because it had already extended its delivery deadline by some six months last year. The firm blamed trouble installing the complicated electrical wiring for the plane’s entertainment system. It reckons that the delay will cost it €500m a year in lost profits between 2007 and 2010.
In today’s environment, with lawyers typically intimately involved in information releases of magnitude, it is unimaginable that the company’s clearly worded press release could be misleading:
Airbus has informed its customers today that a review of the A380 programme has shown that the delivery schedule will undergo a shift of six to seven months due to production ramp-up issues. In parallel, Airbus confirmed to its customers the satisfactory progress of the flight test campaign, which is expected to lead to certification and delivery of the first aircraft by the end of the year. The shift in the production ramp-up is likely to limit aircraft delivery to nine in 2007.
The new delays are caused by industrial issues only. They are mainly traceable to bottlenecks formed in the definition, manufacturing and installation of electrical systems and resulting harnesses.
Some have speculated that the reasons for the delay in production are more serious than the entertainment system wiring, and we have noted previous problems at Airbus with uninspected composite structures. We will monitor the situation for developments in how the delivery problems are defined by the company.
UPDATE
Some have been concerned that, unlike the A380 delays, there were no delays in the CEO’s selling stock prior to the announcement of problems that dramatically hit the stock (via Reuters):
The co-chief executive of Airbus parent EADS clung to his post in the face of probes announced on Friday into its recent stock collapse, saying he was unaware of costly delays to the A380 superjumbo jet until after he had sold shares. Frenchman Noel Forgeard said he had nothing to fear from any insider trading probe after reducing his family’s shareholdings in March, and lifted the veil on internal discussions in a bid to show that future deliveries had been considered intact.
Rejecting investor and union calls to resign, Forgeard insisted he had received no inkling of either the delays or a shake-up of holdings by EADS industrial shareholders, which came days after he sold shares and weighed on EADS stock in March. “It was an unfortunate coincidence. Obviously if I had had the least privileged information, I would not have sold the shares,” Forgeard said on Europe 1 radio.
On the day that EADS stock fell 26%, the intra-day low was off 34%. Shareholders have a reason to be mighty upset.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
This is just a larger version of the flimsy, explosive design we’ve been forced to fly in for over 50 years. Accidents happen and the A380 has no exemptions from them. Denial that it will happen is just wishful thinking and when one of these does go down you can kiss a whole small town goodbye. Just a tragedy waiting to happen. Thank God it’s been delayed for so long and orders have dropped off significantly. If you have to fly one of these cracker box jumbos, fly the 747.
Titanic? Most assuredly, but only half the number of people will die in it’s crashing as did in the Titanic’s sinking. They hopefully won’t suffer as long though.
Wouldn’t it be great to fly in a plane that would take off and land at just over 100 mph, carry at least 2 times the load of a commercial airliner (like the 747) with the same fuel economy, land at even the moderate sized airports, walk away from a crash instead of explode into flames from a runway overrun? This plane would also cost 1/2 the price or less to manufacture and would need only 1/2 the runway length.
The A380 ain’t it. I’ve already seen some pretty violent tail strikes and scary take-offs by this plane. They’re all on U-Tube. Take a look.
Visit http://www.aircrash.org and find out about Vincent Burnelli’s airfoil, lifting fuselage and give them your support for a safer, more economical, eco-friendly aircraft. Just Google “Burnelli” images for so of his early planes and see what I’m talking about. Google the 1964 “GB-888A” jet airliner design. It is unbelievably modern and could have carried 600 safely back then.
Its predecessor, the UB-14 crashed violently in 1935 with 7 aboard. All was caught on film. There was no fire and all 7 walked away, unhurt. Their survival was not by chance but by design. The comments about this plane are not my opinion, they are facts from past flight and wind tunnel testing and from the documented, proven history of safety and performance.
Some of us who have found this better, safer, more intelligent and most of all “proven” design are working for it’s revival and construction for commercial use. Join in. Every person can make a difference if they believe they can. Reduce the risk of flying, reduce the stress of flying and reduce the huge carbon footprint made by all existing airliners including the A380. The Burnelli design would save lives, save money, save land and cut air travel greenhouse gases by 40 to 50 percent. What’s not to love about this design? Go to the aircrash site now and see what you can do to help in the effort to bring the dream back to life.