Experts to Help in Airbus Contract Dispute
BERLIN -- Countries planning to purchase Airbus A400M military transport planes will recruit industry experts to help them resolve a contract dispute with the European plane maker, Germany's defense ministry said Thursday.
A ministry spokesman said they will create a panel of industry experts with members from each contract country, which include France, Germany, the U.K., Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey.
The spokesman said deputy defense ministers from those countries ended a meeting in Berlin Wednesday without deciding how to resolve the conflict over cost and production delays. They didn't set a date for a further meeting, the spokesman said.
The A400M has been dogged with development problems and is now running more than three years late, costing Airbus and its parent company, European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. NV €7.4 billion ($11.13 billion) more than originally planned, according to a report in Tuesday's Les Echos edition, citing an audit by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Initially budgeted at €20 billion, the program to supply 180 aircraft to the air forces of seven NATO nations is now expected to cost €27.4 billion, including the €2.4 billion that has already been provisioned by EADS, the newspaper had reported.
Airbus said recently it expects its A400M military transporter to make its inaugural flight in the fiftieth week of 2009.
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