B-lates
Should have put inter alia there, I suppose, as the 747-8's not on time either, but my point was really that keeping to a schedule over many years is very sensitive to Mr. Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns", or Mr. MacMillan's "events, dear boy".
In the end, it's whether the aircraft can do the job it was intended to do. From my seat well away from the action, the A400 seems to be promising to do what it said on the original tin, though "events" (like getting disentangled from the Afghan business) may make some customers less keen on the numbers they've signed up for only recently. But don't knock it for being late !
As for the original subject of this thread, "A400" goes down very well in every language of the participants. "Grizzly" is OK as a nickname, in English, and is particularly apposite with the increasing numbers of (brown) bears on both sides of the Pyrenees but how that translates into e.g Turkish, is "problematical", as they say ...