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Europe
Virgin Atlantic to delay A380 deliveries until 2013
2006-10-27
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Virgin Atlantic on Thursday said it's agreed to push back deliveries of the troubled Airbus A380 superjumbo until 2013, a move it said would give Airbus the ability to focus on getting first versions of the planes to key customers. The privately held airline said by then, the A380 will have proved its "innovative design" over several years in customer service. Virgin had previously anticipating delivery of its first A380 in 2009.

The deferral will allow Airbus to prioritize production and deliveries for launch customers such as Singapore Airlines, Virgin said, adding it's extended the leases of several Boeing aircraft to meet its fleet needs.

The plane, more than two years behind schedule, has already led to the departure of two Airbus chief executives as well as the resignation of EADS co-chief executive Noel Forgeard.
EADS shares had climbed 5% on Thursday, buoyed by orders for at least 150 planes from China as well as a separate order for 65 planes from a low-cost carrier in Ohio, Skybus Airlines.
Posted by:Steve White

#8  (dunno if that is in real years or Airbus years)

Bwahahahaha! Airbus needs to be called, "Vaporbus". This is a golden instance of where China's antagonistic refusal to spend export revenues on the purchase of American goods will come back to bite them HARD. The combination of European patchwork engineering along with Chinese manufacturing's legendary graft and corner-cutting will make for some genuine flying death traps. In the professional travel industry China's national airline, CAAC, is reputed to stand for "China Air Always Crashes".
Posted by: Zenster   2006-10-27 16:01  

#7  To follow up on Chirac's boasting: the Chinese plant for the 320s would be complete by 2009 (dunno if that is in real years or Airbus years) but, when done would be able to complete as many as 4 airplanes a year!!!! And a new startup airline in Columbus Ohio, called 'Skybus' has also ordered a whole double handful of Airbus planes. Industry analysts are very unrestrained in their skepticism surrounding the viability of Skybus.
Posted by: USN, ret.   2006-10-27 15:19  

#6  Chirac is in China hawking French goods and kissing babies. The Chinese ordered 150 A320s to be built in China and 20 A350s (ready in 10+ years). It will be interesting to see if the Chinese Airbus factory will export A320s (with as much Chinese built parts as possible) after the Chinese order is fulfilled.
Posted by: ed   2006-10-27 10:14  

#5  I predict that Virgin Galactic will be flying space tourists before Virgin Atlantic flies an A380.
Posted by: SteveS   2006-10-27 09:48  

#4  I saw at CompUSA a flight simulator program for the A380 for sale. talk about mistiming the marketing campaign...
Posted by: Ptah   2006-10-27 09:43  

#3  China announced the order of a bunch of Airbus planes yesterday, according to CNBC. I didn't notice which body, but regardless that will pump some money into the company... eventually.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-10-27 08:35  

#2  "would give Airbus the ability to focus on getting first versions of the planes to key customers."

Virgin isn't "key"??? I would think that with the break even point being raised to 420 aircraft and only 159 on order each customer would be "key".
Posted by: tzsenator   2006-10-27 08:29  

#1  is it dead yet?
Posted by: RD   2006-10-27 03:25  

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