Super Jumbo problems for the A380 . The news goes from bad to worse as EADS has confirmed a further delay to the delivery of its giant flagship A380 super-jumbo.
The Airbus parent firm will only be delivering one A380 aircraft in 2007, having previously promised nine. Theo Leggett reports.
The London Telegraph is reporting:
"Airbus plans to cut thousands of jobs and rationalise plants as part of a sweeping cost-cutting plan to improve efficiency and restore confidence among angry customers. A 30pc cut in overheads along with a 20pc improvement in productivity are key parts of a programme announced yesterday to restructure the business and cope with a severe financial haemorrhage produced by the A380 superjumbo crisis"
Virgin Airlines is getting nervous and Forbes is reporting some second thoughts at Singapore Airlines:
"SINGAPORE (XFN-ASIA) - Singapore Airlines Ltd, set to be the first carrier to fly the A380 superjumbo aircraft, is studying details of the latest delay in the plane's delivery.
'We're studying the details of what Airbus has given us overnight,' Stephen Forshaw, SIA's vice president of public affairs, told Agence France-Presse.
He could not immediately make any further comment."
Comment: It makes you wonder if the cost of any new aircraft in the league of the A380 or Dreamliner is a worthy risk for any individual company. It was only a few years ago that the people at Airbus were giddy over Boeing's troubles. What kind of industry is it where despite huge amounts of capital, it is necessary to put the entire company at risk to develop one new plane?
yeah, baby!
ReplyDeleteSoccer Blue!
ReplyDeleteor whatever:
This means that Meanie Boeing is in for a BOUNCE.
Virgin thot they were gittin French-Kissed, and got raped instead.
ReplyDeleteWas it the Brits that got out a while back?
ReplyDeleteperhaps you mean Concorde? More here.
ReplyDeleteBiggest news for Seattle since the Sea Chickens won the NFC Champeenship.
ReplyDelete(Insert gratuitous Sea Gals picture here)
Bad news for al-Qaeda, they want the EUtopians to hurry up with their 600 passenger plane so they can blow one of them up.
islam is developing its own aircraft industry, as we speak (see secret desert location).
ReplyDeleteI once saw comedienne Ramadanna Ramanadan perform in the Bookim Dana Room at the Ramada Inn out on Yomama Highway.
ReplyDeleteJune 19, 2006
ReplyDeleteBAE Systems said on Monday that investment bank Rothschild has two weeks to set a price for a 20 percent stake in planemaker Airbus which it plans to sell to EADS.
Rothschild was brought in at the weekend to arbitrate after investment banks for BAE and EADS, which owns the other 80 percent of Airbus, failed to agree a price, a BAE spokeswoman said.
Once Rothschild sets the price, BAE will hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting to seek backing for the sale, she said.
"In two weeks' time, (Rothschild) will give them a value, and that will be the value at which the transaction trades," a source close to the talks said.
The stake is valued at EUR3.5 billion (USD$4.4 billion) in EADS' books but analysts expect it to fetch more.
Credit Suisse analyst Steve East put the value at EUR5 billion (USD$6.3 billion) in a research note last week.
Last week's news of a delay in Airbus's A380 superjumbo project triggered a profit warning at EADS and a 25 percent fall in its shares, the price of which will be used to help set the value of BAE's Airbus stake.
The sale comes as Airbus faces rising research and development costs on models needed to stay abreast of rival Boeing and as BAE looks to focus on its core defense business.
BAE is exercising a put option under an Airbus shareholders agreement which it signed with EADS in 2001.
Valuation will require Rothschild to assess Airbus as a company completely separate from EADS.
It makes you wonder if the cost of any new aircraft the league of the A380 or Dreamliner is a worthy risk for any individual company. It was only a few years ago that the people at Airbus were giddy over Boeing's troubles. What kind of industry is it where despite huge amounts of capital, it is necessary to put the entire company at risk to develop one new plane?
ReplyDeleteWould you fly in a Klosterfocher ?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYou may be right bigmac. The point is there is an extraordinary amount of risk in developing one plane. Boeing was on its back a few years go and it looked as if Airbus would overtake it..
ReplyDeleteThe market has its doubts BigMac
ReplyDeleteUPDATE 5-Airbus parent EADS pounded over A380 delays
Wed Oct 4, 2006 10:38am ET
By Tim Hepher and Sonali Paul
PARIS/MELBOURNE, Oct 4 (Reuters) - The world's airlines were forced to review growth plans and investors hammered the shares of Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday after the European planemaker again pushed back deliveries of its A380 superjumbo.
With new delays of a year, the world's largest airliner is now running two years behind its delivery schedule as engineers struggle to overcome problems wiring the mammoth doubledeckers.
EADS shares plunged as much as 11.7 percent and touched 20 euros for the first time since the A380 wiring snags pushed the company into financial and management turmoil in the summer.
In late trading, they were down 4.4 percent at 21.6 euros.
I knew you would home in on that, rufus--I was checking, waiting for it.
ReplyDeleteIf we socialized Boeing, couldn't we get our fighters and C-17's for free?
ReplyDeleteOf course. And just pay the workers in local grain, and shoot them if they don't like it.
ReplyDeleteIf we socialized Boeing, couldn't we get our fighters and C-17's for free?
ReplyDeleteThe difference between Socialists and Capitalists is that Socialists like to get big ticket items like hub-to-hub Superjumbo Jets and big Light Rail projects and taxpayer-funded sports Stadiums and Single-Payer Health Care they can point to and say, "See, we're world class!" Capitalists prefer point-to-point single aisle economy planes and more general purpose lanes on the freeway and SUVs because free markets quietly and efficiently see a need and fill it.
The fighter jets and C-17s the American tax payer pays for are cross-subsidising the civil aircraft programme of Boeing.
ReplyDeleteThe money the EUtopians are NOT spending on their own defense but are pouring into their welfare system represents a back-channel subsidy. Fair's fair.
Nah, don't go away, bigmac. You're fun to read. Give us some more of that superior stuff. I want to see the blog burst.
ReplyDelete1BigMac1 can read about us in
ReplyDeleteDer Spiegel.
We be famous, Amos.
Hey, maybe now we can get our teeth fixed?
ReplyDeleteBig mac be sure and Come bac.
ReplyDeleteGood shew, bigmac--a spirited defence, rawther! Too bad about Yorktown, we could all've been spared Wanker Bush, and still be talking funny and spelling things with an extra "u" and fancying our brollies.
ReplyDeletePS, the P-51D Mustang could've handled the Spitfire Mk IX with ease.
ReplyDeleteYou may have a point, there.
ReplyDeleteOh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
ReplyDeleteAnd danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
Delays in production of new aircraft is the norm.
ReplyDeleteI worked on the 747-400 electrical system upgrade. That particular subsystem delayed roll out for two years.
We had hundreds of contractors working 12 hour days for a year to get it back on track.
Part of the difficulty was they made a bunch of kids lead engineers on parts of the project. They could do design. They could not do robust design. And they refused to take advice from old farts (any one older than they were).
============================
OTOH I worked A320 and generally found the French engineers of lower quality than American engineers.
The Americans were perfectionists used to working to very tight tolerances. The French had a looser attitude.
Personally I'd prefer the American approach if my life depended on it.
But there are always ways to screw up.
================================
Once your designs get to the point of having to bet the company what you expect is a system shift. i.e. Maglev or something else will replace at least part of the aircraft transportation system.
The poverty rate in America is terrible.
ReplyDeleteThe lowest income group in America, Blacks, have a purchacing power parity income equal to the average Swede.
Of the bottom 20% families - 1/2 own houses and 90% own cars. 50% own two color TVs. There is an obesity problem among the American poor. I guess we are going to need more free gyms to go along with the free food. LOL.
So yeah. Poverty in America is the pits. And our evil capitalist economy is producing jobs at an astounding rate. So great that about 3 million Mexican workers and their families have come here against the wishes of many. Now the Mexicans do depress wages. OTOH that is 3 million Mexican familes who have had their lives eased.
Last year the economy grew by $400 bn. Despite the waste of the war in Iraq (I believe a necessary waste - but that is another story). European growth. About 1/2 that or less.
And how about the French intifada? No jobs to keep the kids occupied so they are burning down the country.
Simon,
ReplyDeleteYour links to comments on that thread aren't working.