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Small airlines and A380s.
:hmm:
Perhaps there are some who may allow themselves a wry smile at the following early snippet from today's Times. It seems somewhat doubtful however, that Airbus had small airlines in mind when the A380 was putting on the drawing board. Small airlines balk at lack of maintenance for Airbus A380 By David Robertson THE future profitability of Airbus’s flagship A380 project is under threat, as small airlines are reluctant to buy the aircarft because of a lack of maintenance facilities. There are as yet no plans to build a third-party servicing facility for the A380 superjumbo anywhere in the world. This means that airlines ordering too few aircraft to justify building a dedicated hangar will have to rely on their rivals to do repair work and servicing. Only a handful of airlines are building hangars capable of housing the giant A380. Lufthansa’s facility in Frankfurt, thought to have cost up to £200 million, measures 350 metres by 140 metres and can fit four A380s or six Boeing 747s. Singapore Airlines, Air France and Emirates are also building hangars but there are no independent repair facilities dedicated to the A380. Some airlines might be able to use an existing 747 hangar but many of these will be too small to accommodate the A380’s 80-metre wingspan and 24-metre height. “The lack of third-party maintenance facilities is a major problem for smaller airlines because they will not be able to guarantee getting their planes serviced,” said a consultant who has been advising airlines and airports on the issue. “They will have to approach airlines like Lufthansa, which will charge a premium because they have a captive market. But the real problem will come if hangars are full, because then planes will be left standing, waiting for servicing, and flights will have to be cancelled. This could be very expensive.” The consultant said that the lack of maintenance facilities was deterring smaller airlines from buying the aircraft. Airbus has sold 159 A380s and needs to sell between 250 and 300 for the $12 billion (£6.3 billion) project to break even. However, Virgin Atlantic has delayed plans to build a giant hangar for its new A380s because of production delays to the aircraft. Virgin has an option on a site at Heathrow to build a hangar that will service the six A380s it has ordered. The company is understood to have considered locating its A380 maintenance outside Britain because of the cost of building a facility at Heathrow, but it has now rejected this plan. Construction of the facility has been postponed while Virgin negotiates with Airbus over delivery schedules for its new aircraft. The European consortium announced in June that serious production problems would delay deliveries by at least six months. Virgin had expected to receive its first A380 at the end of 2008 but this is likely to be delayed until well into 2009. The company is in talks with Airbus about possible compensation. Qantas, the Australian carrier, last week confirmed that it had been paid A$104 million (£42 million) by Airbus for delays to its A380 order. Other airlines are also expected to seek damages. A spokesman for Virgin said: “We have got an option on a site at Heathrow but we cannot progress with it because we are waiting for Airbus to tell us about the new delivery schedules. We decided it would be better to have the facility at Heathrow because it would cost less than flying planes out to get them serviced.” Airbus was unavailable for comment yesterday. Flagship's frustration Problems that have plagued Airbus’s 380 superjumbo How to transport the wings, which are too big to fit in a cargo aircraft, from their construction site at Broughton, near Chester, to Airbus’s main factory in Toulouse, France: they are now transported by road and barge, but the Port of Mostyn in Wales had to be dredged first; environmental groups and fishermen claimed the dredging could harm the Dee Estuary Airports’ difficulty in adapting to the A380: vast sums have been spent upgrading airbridges to allow access to the A380’s twin decks Trucks that load the aircraft have had to be built from scratch Airlines fear that maintenance facilities will be insufficient. ;) cc:suspect: |
Originally Posted by cavortingcheetah
:hmm:
Perhaps there are some who may allow themselves a wry smile at the following early snippet from today's Times. It seems somewhat doubtful however, that Airbus had small airlines in mind when the A380 was putting on the drawing board. Excluding the ILFC, there are 138 A380 passenger planes on order. 43 to Emirates - over 30 % to a single customer (and there have been unfavourable remarks about it) 19 to Singapore 15 to Lufthansa 12 to Qantas 10 to Air France 6 each to Malaysia, Thai and Virgin 5 each to China Southern, Kingfisher and Korean Air 4 to Etihad 2 to Qatar. The orders of 6 or fewer per customer are 8 orders out of 13, and sum up to 39 frames - slightly over a quarter of all orders. Are there many airlines who would like to operate a few of A380 frames, perhaps as flagships of their fleets? Boeing 747 and 747SP were bought by a fair number of small customers... flag carriers needed them! |
"In 2009, Qatar, which is half-owned by private investors, will move into Doha International Airport, the first completely new airport to be designed from the start for the A380. At Doha, Qatar also is constructing a new maintenance center that will have enough hangar space for two A380s and three A340s. A company spokesman said plans for non-airframe maintenance are under review and confidential"......
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This means that airlines ordering too few aircraft to justify building a dedicated hangar will have to rely on their rivals to do repair work and servicing. This sounds like another of those Boeing digs to me!! |
It's a Boeing dig. The issue could arise equally with the new 747, or 787.
LH on A380 may well be priced full fare, but LH Technik offer the same product to the market as they provide to LH partner operators - so does BA, AF...any and all MRO providers. By comparison with dedicated independents the operator- maintainer may be less flexible, say to input timing, but may appear to care more because he needs the business more than the big boy does. That's why there is room for both styles of provider. |
A380 Issues
Airbus superjumbo fresh delay report hits shares
Wednesday September 20, 5:40 am ET PARIS (Reuters) - Planemaker Airbus is expected to announce fresh delays to its embattled A380 superjumbo in coming days, a French media report said, adding to woes for parent firm EADS whose shares were also hit by a brokerage downgrade. Airbus' 12-billion-euro ($15.19 billion) program to produce a new class of mammoth plane is already overdue and triggered an EADS profit warning and management shake-up in June. On Wednesday, a report in French newspaper Les Echos, which did not cite any sources, said Airbus could announce a delay of at least six months for its first deliveries to clients such as Air France, and only four deliveries next year to Singapore Airlines and Emirates. "According to our information, the assembly problems at the Toulouse-Blagnac plant would not allow it (Airbus) to hold to its last pledge of delivering at least nine aircraft in 2007 (against 25 initially planned)," the newspaper said. An Airbus spokeswoman said the report was "speculation." "We have been undertaking a full review of the A380 program since the summer. It is not finished yet. We will communicate after the EADS board meeting on September 29," she said. EADS shares shed as much as 4 percent to 21.82 euros before easing back to 22.50 euros in mid-morning trade. An EADS spokesman in Germany said checks into the A380 delivery delays were not yet concluded. "There are still no results at present." Analysts expect Airbus to announce the findings of a 100-day study ordered by new Chief Executive Christian Streiff in coming weeks. Some expect Streiff to favor getting the bad news out of the way quickly, including a possible one-off charge stemming from delays in launching the mid-sized A350 model. Airbus has struggled to market the A350 in the face of strong demand for rival Boeing Co.'s 787 which is due 2008, now likely beating the Airbus to market by four years. The A380's woes stem from complications in wiring the massive double-decker planes and have sparked calls for compensation from customers, some of whom have hinted they might reconsider their orders. Emirates has ordered 43 of the aircraft -- by far the largest order of the plane which has a list price of $300 million. It said at the weekend it had not yet considered canceling its order. IXIS Securities analyst Lorraine Thoumyre said in a research note that she was cutting her rating on EADS shares to "reduce" from "buy" while keeping a share price target of 23.90 euros. "The accumulation of multiple rumors and comments create a stack of presumptions which give credence to a new delay of the A380," she said. Airbus has been rocked by the A380's woes and its fitful efforts to launch the A350. The decision by 20-percent shareholder BAE Systems (London:BA.L - News) to sell out of the planemaker has not helped sentiment, either. Russian flag carrier Aeroflot said on Wednesday it would go ahead with plans to buy the Boeing 787 but that it also planned to buy the Airbus A350 later |
It's now on CNN.
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A380
They've jut laid off 50 contractors at Hamburg and are going to close(temporarily) two of their hangers. Loads of electricians going( surplus to requirement)at Toulouse.
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A380 Issues
BBC - Airbus confirms more A380 delays
The parent company of European planemaker Airbus has confirmed there will be a further delay in deliveries of its flagship A380 super-jumbo. EADS said the hold-up was again linked to wiring problems, the cause of an earlier delay announced in June. The 12bn euros ($14bn; £8bn) project is already a year late and company sources suggest the latest delay could mean customers waiting a further six months. EADS said it would give more details on its delivery schedule in four weeks. In Paris, EADS shares were down 1.7% in morning trade. "Although the company's assessment is still under way, continuing industrialisation challenges with the wiring of production aircraft have been identified and are being tackled," an EADS press statement said......... |
EADS Delays White Elephant Further
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5366350.stm
The parent company of European planemaker Airbus has confirmed there will be a further delay in deliveries of its flagship A380 super-jumbo...... http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-23349,00.html Airbus insiders told The Australian that Qantas would possibly not get its first aircraft until the first quarter of 2008. |
Emirates may cancel
AP is reporting that Emirates may cancel their A380 order:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060921/emira...rbus.html?.v=4 ....although the AP headline is more spin than substance - all Emirates are saying officially is that: "Earlier Thursday, Emirates airlines released a statement saying it had not yet had discussions with Airbus on a new delivery schedule and had no plans to withdraw its long-standing order." Whatever one thinks of the plane, this delay - surely to be expected - and managed (much) better in a project of this size is doing it no good at all. And yes, I do remember how early 747's couldn't start their engines if the wind was in the wrong direction...... |
Given the A380s EIS slippage of 18 months now - or possibly more :eek: - I am still not entirely convinced that mere ~ w i r i n g ~ issues are at fault here. :confused:
Airbus' somewhat secretive nature will keep us all guessing. Time will tell. Meanwhule there's also good news for EADS: Lufthansa will accept a few A330s (5) for an interim solution while they await delivery of the big bus. The airline has also ordered 30 of the narrow body A320 series for a combined total at list prices of a little over 3 billion US for a vote of great confidence from Europe's No 2 airline. |
you may image how cheap the A330s and A320s for Lufthansa were
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Just the first few paragraphs from washingtonpost.com today:
Airbus A380 superjumbo faces new delay By Tim Hepher Reuters Thursday, September 21, 2006; 9:03 AM PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus revealed new delays for its troubled A380 superjumbo jet on Thursday, blaming a repeat of wiring installation problems which have already pushed the programme a year behind schedule and hit future profits. Bowing to pressure to either confirm or deny reports of another logjam in the twice-delayed airliner project, Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA) said it was too early to say how long the latest delivery delay would last or how much it would cost. Shares in EADS fell by as much as 3.9 percent, slicing 750 million euros off the value of Europe's top aerospace group. At mid-session in Paris they were down 2.3 percent at 22.3 euros. The 12-billion-euro ($15 billion) programme to produce a new class of mammoth plane has already been hit twice by problems in fitting each jet's 500 km (300 miles) of wiring, culminating in a 2 billion euro profit warning and management shake-up in June. "Although the company's assessment is still under way, continuing industrialisation challenges with the wiring of production aircraft have been identified and are being tackled," EADS said in a statement. "Consequently, from what is known today, there will be further delays." Well, hell. :ugh: Cheers, y'all. (and weeping and wailing) |
What about EADS just wanting to pay little money for BAe's 20% share in Airbus... just leaking bad news at the right time:E
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The buy-out share price was agreed a couple of weeks ago by independent arbitration - at which point it was BAe tthat announced to the the press that they expected EADS to have to announce a further slip.......
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You would really be getting a bit nervous if you had shares in airbus at the moment !!!!!!
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Or when the market finally realises that low yield J* international is taking four aircraft from high yielding Qf mainline maybe our share price will reflect the actuality of inept management!
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Boeing takes 47 new jet orders
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co. <BA.N> announced new orders for 47 planes from unidentified buyers on Thursday, worth more than $4 billion overall, including 16 for its new carbon and titanium 787 Dreamliner.
The order pushes the U.S. planemaker's tally to 632 firm orders so far this year, well ahead of European rival Airbus <EAD.PA>, which has confirmed only 222 firm orders this year, but picked up a prestigious 35 plane order from German carrier Lufthansa <LHAG.DE> on Wednesday. http://www.boston.com/business/artic...re_than_4_bln/ (I wonder if this has anything to do with the EADS announcement?) |
When was Qantas originally supposed to get the 380? Have they had to do construction work at Mascot in order to support this behemoth?
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