Full A380 production will not be achieved until 2010
Airbus will deliver around 70 fewer A380s worth over $19 billion at list prices over the next three years as a result of the dramatic rescheduling announced last week. With the production crisis threatening to spill over into other high-profile programmes such as the A350 and A400M, Airbus chief executive Christian Streiff says the company must urgently “re-invent itself”.
Under the revised plan, A380 production will not reach its full level of around four aircraft a month until 2010, when 45 aircraft are due to be shipped. As a result just 39 A380s will be delivered through to the end of 2009, compared with 107 originally planned and 80 anticipated under the rescheduling announced in June 2006 (see table). Flight International calculates that, based on the A380’s $282 million list price, the 68-aircraft shortfall over the pre-June plan is worth $19.2 billion – or around 60% of the value of Airbus’s entire 2005 production. Airbus parent EADS puts the revenue reduction as a result of the delay at €2.8 billion ($3.55 billion).
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Airbus has blamed the A380 digital mock-up for its wiring woes |
Airbus blames the need for this second major reassessment of A380 production in three months on the fact that it had previously underestimated the work required to complete the installation of the electrical harnesses: “The root cause of the problem is the fact that the 3D digital mock-up, which facilitates the design of the electrical harnesses installation, was implemented late and that the people working on it were in their learning curve,” it says.
But Streiff sees Airbus’s problems as being far more wide-reaching, saying that the airframer “is not yet an integrated company” and “doesn’t yet have a simple and clear organisation”.
The chief executive says that Airbus has “shadow hierarchies – leftovers from the never-finished integration...until recently it has been more a ‘green culture’ where truth was not brought to light. Thus we will be able to create an open spirit, a simpler organisation.”
But senior Airbus executives acknowledge that there other programmes could be affected. EADS co-chief executive Tom Enders has hinted that the future of the A350 programme is not certain, while Streiff acknowledges that there could be trouble ahead for the A400M. “We have not yet found the right cost base to get profitability targets,” he told the Financial Times, adding that there is a “tense situation” regarding the timetable “with suppliers and internally”. Although Streiff acknowledges that the A400M’s timetable is currently on target, he warned that it is “on the edge...without any reserves”.
Source: Flight International
