Airbus will miss its delivery target of 20 A380s this year because of disruptions resulting from the uncontained failure of a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine, which forced a Qantas A380 to make an emergency landing in early November.
The manufacturer now says it will deliver 19 A380s this year, whereas Airbus executive vice-president of programmes Tom Williams said in May that it was looking to deliver "20 or over 20" of the type.
In an internal letter to employees, Airbus chief Tom Enders says: "[W]e still face significant challenges going forward. And certainly, the Rolls-Royce engine incident on Qantas flight QF32 has added further disruptions and complications to our production.
"Deliveries in 2010 (where we now expect 19 instead of 20 deliveries) and 2011 will be impacted."
Enders goes on to say that Airbus' priority is to "support customers with Rolls-Royce engines and to do everything possible to ensure that the reputation of our great aircraft with customers and passengers alike will not suffer in this difficult period".
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
