Posted on 10/28/2006 8:47:21 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
LONDON The biggest buyer of the world's largest airliner, Emirates, said Friday that it would send its own audit team to Airbus before entering talks to address the A380 superjumbo's two-year delay and the fact the plane is 5.5 tons overweight.
"We have not yet engaged with Airbus as regards not only the delay but the fact it is overweight," the president of Emirates, Tim Clark, said.
Clark was in London to open a new lounge at Heathrow Airport designed for the A380, which will now not see one of the planes until the third quarter of 2008.
He said the Dubai-based carrier was set to send its own eight-person audit team to the Airbus manufacturing facilities in Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany, to assess how realistic the plane company's latest proposed delivery schedule was.
"It would be foolish to say we do not expect anything further," Clark said when asked if the third and most recent delay in the A380 would be the last. "By the time we get the first one, we would have had 18 flying" were it not for the delay, Clark said, adding that the delays were costing the airline "hundreds of millions of dollars" in lost revenue.
He declined to comment on what sort of financial compensation Emirates might seek from Airbus over the delays or the weight problem, which could mean the planes use more fuel than promised and run up heavier- than-expected engine maintenance bills.
Emirates has 43 of the $300 million Airbus A380 superjumbo jets on order and has been a vocal critic of the company, which is running behind schedule after encountering problems in installing wiring in the planes.
Clark said that he planned to lease seven Boeing 777 planes and would hold onto them for 10 to 15 years,
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Your best option is to get the hell out now, Emirates. As it always is with socialist enterprises, you'll never recoup your losses. Just cut the losses and move on.
Better put it on the Oprah diet.
Why anyone would buy an A380 other than to make a statement against the US or artificially prop up a failing state-run company is beyond me.
The 747-8 has the lowest operating costs of any large passenger jet.
Trip costs are 19% lower than the A380 and seat mile costs are 4% lower than the A380. Assuming of course, that Airbus can ever get the weight down to their planned weight. It appears the differences will be greater.
http://www.newairplane.com/747/
To further put a stake in the heart of the socialist vampire (Airbus), Boeing claims the new 747 will have a 30% improvement in fuel efficiency. Between that and the 787, Airbus is dead. (The only thing that may save them is their move to build aircraft in China). Even their "EU domination" supporters have to keep the bills paid at some point.
Hooray for capitalism!
Yup. EADS's biggest stockholder, British Aerospace, saw the writing on the wall and bailed out a couple of weeks ago. They made the right move.
What this means is that the engines are at 110% on take off and 100% during flight to get that sucker up and flying.
"Increased maintenance" means the engines are working a lot harder for longer....thus increasing wear and tear and higher fuel consumption.
It was tempting to Boeing at first to play the "ours is bigger" game, but maturity set in and they saw the economic value of the 787. When it rolls out, it'll change the way a number of airlines operate.
For those that still want "big", you can't beat the 747.
And just wait till airports around the world want a refund on sunk costs for new heavy duty runways, wider access ramps and new terminal facilities that were built in anticipation of the arrival of airbust.
It ain't raining over at airbus, the place is getting hit by a hurricane.
Airbus is to be congratulated.
They've designed a plane whose parts fall off BEFORE it leaves the ground, let alone even has said parts installed yet.
Now one just has to yell "Airbus!" and drive the heck out of it's way.
/ bad poke at Airbus.
The reason one buys a jumbo jet is to be competitive. Being 5+tons over weight either means delays while they shave pounds off the plane through extended design modifications, or it means that they abandon competitive operating costs.
Neither is a good choice for the signed customers. I can see why Virgin Airlines, opted for later delivery by several years, stating they wanted the aircraft to prove itself in commercial operations. That appears to me to be code words for "several years of production and around the clock engineering to get weight and operating costs trimmed to competitive levels."
The real big picture issue is can the European backers of this company afford to spend all that money on engineering without a solid revenue stream? The United Emmerit's auditors will probably be evaluating whether they think that the weight issue will further delay scheduled delivery and/or the probability of the company canceling the program.
What complicates this further is that Boeing will likely challenge any subsidies to Air Bus before the WTO GAT courts. That should further put the panties of the EU in a bunch.
This is going to be interesting to see how it plays out in the European Parliaments. The Brits were indeed lucky to bail on this one. Germany and France are going to have some ugly choices. I hope that Boeing puts the screws to them if they opt for subsidies to Airbus to keep it going.
i'm surprised the airpig don't have EjectionSeats for the pilots... the only thing worse than getting on an a-380... would be getting on an a-380 with E-Seats for the pilots so they could leave when things start to get sporty like.
check out the A-400 8^)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1727223/posts
Oh the irony. Here I sit doing a report for a company that is involved in for the 787. This plane is going to change the entire industry. It will be the first entirely carbon fiber plane. It will be so efficient to run and maintain that all new aircraft that follow will have a similar design. New factories will be built just to produce the material for this plane. It will be a huge investment from Boeing and their suppliers. Airbus will be forced to follow but will have little capital to do so after the 380 disaster.
Change the crew.
That's why I put more power in my cars than I seldom need.
Bingo. And that is probably part of the calculus in the higher unit production breakeven point.
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