Airbus Raises A380 (Airbus Titanicus) break-even target.

Airbus raises A380 break-even target
By Kevin Done in London and Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt Financial Times Subscription

"EADS warned investors on Thursday that the long delays and mounting costs of the Airbus A380 superjumbo programme meant that the group would have to produce 55 per cent more aircraft to reach break-even.

In a presentation to investors in Hamburg, Andreas Sperl, Airbus chief financial officer, said that the group would need to deliver 420 of the 555-seat giant aircraft for the programme to break even compared with the total of 270 aircraft forecast in the 2005 updated business case."

This is real bad news for Airbus, well actually the EU taxpayers who will have to bail them out again as Airbus has so far received orders for only 159 A380s and customers, angered by the delays, have threatened to cancel some contracts. Under current planning, Toulouse, France-based Airbus will deliver only 84 of the planes by 2010, compared with the 159 aircraft estimated as recently as June, with a total operating loss in the period of $6 billion. Looks like this big puppy may be profitable sometime after 2020, give or take a decade or two.