The A380, the black cat of Airbus

The European aircraft manufacturer postpones the delivery of 12 A380s to the Emirates airline, the main customer of the very large aircraft.
Decidedly the A380 again cumulates the problems. Airbus announced Tuesday the postponement of a year of delivery of 12 A380 to Emirates airline, the main customer of the very large carrier, without giving an explanation on the reasons for the delay. Airbus “will adapt its delivery rate with the delayed delivery to Emirates for six A380 aircraft from 2017 to 2018 and six others from 2018 to 2019” , he said, after an agreement between the airline and the British motorist Rolls-Royce who must equip these devices.

Emirates, which will take delivery on Wednesday for the first time of a Rolls-Royce-powered A380, had reported in November of technical problems concerning the engines of the British that had to be delivered to him. The Dubai company is asking the engine manufacturer to improve the performance of its engine. Rolls-Royce is approached to motorize the A380neo if one day Airbus launches this program.

Maintain deliveries at 12 A380 per year
Six deliveries were postponed from 2017 to 2018 and another six from 2018 to 2019 following an agreement between Emirates and the UK’s Rolls-Royce and a second agreement between the Emirati and Airbus, European aviation manufacturer in a statement. At the beginning of the year, Airbus said it had delivered 27 A380s in 2015, a level it planned to maintain in 2016 and 2017. In the first 11 months of 2016, Airbus delivered 21 A380s.

The European aircraft manufacturer also reconfirms its target of reducing deliveries from A380 to 12 per year announced last July. Finally, the manufacturer stresses that it will accelerate the reduction of its fixed costs so that the impact of the postponement of deliveries to Emirates is minimal on the financial balance of the program that it hopes to maintain in 2017.