New problems for the Airbus A380

bits44 · Post by **bits44** » 03 Oct 2006, 22:21

Christien Streiff announcement:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/aero ... 107302.asp

cageyjames · Post by **cageyjames** » 03 Oct 2006, 22:34

So the race is on... Care to put your money down on which aircraft enters service first? 787 or A380?

TexasGuy · Post by **TexasGuy** » 03 Oct 2006, 23:25

A 2.8 billion euros lost from the latest delay

:(:(

story here.....

http://yahoo.reuters.com/news/articlehy ... ews&rpc=44

smokejumper · Post by **smokejumper** » 04 Oct 2006, 02:34

No one takes any pleasure in this news; not even Boeing (well maybe a little). Remember, Boeing went through a similar situation in the 90's and had to shut down production and sort everything out. They know all too well how the mighty can fall and how hard it hurts/

Hey! Where is John Lehey of Airbus? I haven't heard anything form him in the recent past. He generally crows at all events.

TexasGuy · Post by **TexasGuy** » 04 Oct 2006, 05:17

I certainly dont take pleasure in this news. Hopefully Airbus will learn from the Boeing problems in the past and land on thier feet just as Boeing has. Then we are assured to have a world presented with the best aviation has to offer because anyone with good sense knows, competition creates innovation!!!!!!!

CX · Post by CX » 04 Oct 2006, 10:02

I can't believe it, the SIA A380 has been in testing programmes since... a long time ago and still they can't get just ONE plane ready by December? I never anticipated it would be a 10-month delay, it is disappointing but let's just hope airlines will stick with their A380 orders, as it will be increasingly tempting for airlines to switch to 748I. Lufthansa said few days ago their 747-400 replacement decision will not be affected by the delays of the A380, so what are they reviewing? and i think SIA would stick to their order because they should have already ordered enough planes to replace their 747-400s (773ERs and A380s), so what are they reviewing? The key is what Emirates will do... if they cut their order by half Airbus will lose 20 orders, and those orders will surely go to the 748I!
I dont' know what airlines meant by 'reviewing' their orders, i hope that doesn't mean cancellation!
Does Airbus have facilities and spare production slots to build a few extra A346s to lease (perhaps for free) for launch customers? if airlines do intend to cancel A380 orders, a thing Airbus may do is to lease their closest substitute, for no price.

iechist · Post by **iechist** » 04 Oct 2006, 14:10

Since the delay is apparently as a result of the A380's IFE system, what news of aircraft that have been sold for use as a freighter.

Why not move these forward in the production slots if they don't have any problems?

bits44 · Post by **bits44** » 04 Oct 2006, 14:11

You have think like an Airline to understand what they mean in " Review their options " for example lets say you are the VP in charge of fleet planning for Qantas, your job is to make sure that you have the correct type of aircraft to fly your routes as planned out for the next ten years.

Based on current and anticipated loads and planned future route expansion, you will with the boards approval, order or lease aircraft to cover those needs.

Meanwhile some of your aircraft will be nearing the end of their service life and you will have planned for their replacement, all of this is being done to ensure your airline is competitive and ahead of the game.

You are looking and planning ahead ten years down the road, and every day you review those needs and plan for unexpected events, like crashes, collisions, you name it, anything that would subtract from your fleet.

So like Singapore, who had already been advertising and inviting customers to participate in the maiden flight of their A380, now look like fools, and your airline will as well, if you had been advertising maiden flight dates. The PR losses are incalcuble.

So now your airline is not getting its aircraft for another two years, think of all the things you may have committed your Airline too? slots at airports, which you have to pay for, training for your staff at all levels which will be stale by the time you get delivery, ground equipment which you probably have already received and paid for, sitting idle, you may have already purchased or booked time on simulators for your flight deck crew, again training will be stale.

The costs to Airlines is enormous, and they must either purchase other Aircraft or enter into short term leases with expensive rates. And all the related expenses associated with doing that, Training, equipment, and on and on.

This is just the tip of the Iceberg, there are so many other costs that would need a book to list, this is a very big problem for all A380 customers, and the quantity of aircraft just multiplies the costs.

KT

smokejumper · Post by **smokejumper** » 04 Oct 2006, 15:02

CX wrote:I can't believe it, the SIA A380 has been in testing programmes since... a long time ago and still they can't get just ONE plane ready by December? I never anticipated it would be a 10-month delay, it is disappointing but let's just hope airlines will stick with their A380 orders, as it will be increasingly tempting for airlines to switch to 748I. Lufthansa said few days ago their 747-400 replacement decision will not be affected by the delays of the A380, so what are they reviewing? and i think SIA would stick to their order because they should have already ordered enough planes to replace their 747-400s (773ERs and A380s), so what are they reviewing? The key is what Emirates will do... if they cut their order by half Airbus will lose 20 orders, and those orders will surely go to the 748I!
I dont' know what airlines meant by 'reviewing' their orders, i hope that doesn't mean cancellation!
Does Airbus have facilities and spare production slots to build a few extra A346s to lease (perhaps for free) for launch customers? if airlines do intend to cancel A380 orders, a thing Airbus may do is to lease their closest substitute, for no price.

The A380 customer airlines may threaten to cancel orders, but I doubt that they will. Once they force Airbus to compensate them for the long 2 year delay, they'll end up with the cheapest wide bodies ever (perhaps less than $100 million each!). With a reported $135-$150 million contract price (first buyers always get a BIG discount from list price) and penalties that may reach $35-40 million per plane, customers will get a real bargain.

Customers ordered the A380 for capacity and range reasons, and these reasons still stand. They'll take the planes (although Emerates could scale back from 45 units) and get a real bargain to boot!

CX · Post by CX » 04 Oct 2006, 15:13

How many A380s were Emirates goign to receive for the time the A380 is delayed? (ie between now and August 2008?) 3 or 4? I guess Emirates is the special one because they are not replacing anything, they are just pure expanding. Perhaps Airbus should give them a few A346HGWs in the mean time? While SIA, they are replacing 744s, and I doubt they will temporarily replace their 744s with A346s!
I think also the 748I isn't really a satisfactory substitute to the A380, with 500-seat config the 748I will be cramped ass, while some reports has said that an A380 with a few extra rows (10seats/row) will still offer way more room than a 748I.

As for SIA, i have participated in their A380 prize draw competition thing, answering questions like 'when will SIA receive its first A380', 'which route will the first A380 fly' etc. to win a scale model or a A380 flight 8)
And i just can't understand it, the first A380 was out of the factory ages ago, like a year or something (even more?), and they couldn't do the wiring for ONE aircraft in ONE whole year?????

PYX · Post by **PYX** » 04 Oct 2006, 17:14

CX wrote:..........And i just can't understand it, the first A380 was out of the factory ages ago, like a year or something (even more?), and they couldn't do the wiring for ONE aircraft in ONE whole year?????

The delay has now been stretched out to 2 years. It defies common sense that this all because they can't string a wiring harness. There has to more more serious problems that Airbus is not being upfront and honest about.
They have what, 4 planes built and flying, but none can be delivered because of wiring problems??!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DFW · Post by **DFW** » 04 Oct 2006, 17:17

Prototype aircraft, like the four test 380s, are usually manufactured "quick and dirty" in order to get them done faster. They are therefore not optimized for maintainability, and the documentation of how all 3 million components of the aircraft came together may be incomplete.

For example, consider wiring. Wire harnesses are great for efficient production because it's cost effective to fabricate them on a wire harness assembly line. But designing them takes a long time and requires collaboration between multiple design groups. For prototype aircraft, I suspect they had aircraft assemblers take spools of wire onto the aircraft and run the wires from point A to point B. This is an exaggeration of course, but you get the picture.

That's why when Boeing or Airbus sells the test aircraft to a customer, they take several months to retrofit the aircraft to bring them up to maintainability standards.

smokejumper · Post by **smokejumper** » 04 Oct 2006, 17:26

PYX wrote:
CX wrote:..........And i just can't understand it, the first A380 was out of the factory ages ago, like a year or something (even more?), and they couldn't do the wiring for ONE aircraft in ONE whole year?????
The delay has now been stretched out to 2 years. It defies common sense that this all because they can't string a wiring harness. There has to more more serious problems that Airbus is not being upfront and honest about.
They have what, 4 planes built and flying, but none can be delivered because of wiring problems??!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Airbus management certainly knew of the issues with the wiring harnesses; they just ignored them or hoped (and prayed) for a miracle. Either is inexcusable and irresponsible.

The biggest thing that amazes me is how they kept it secret for so long. While rumors of lateness occcasonally popped up, there were no public announcements or shareholder outcry for facts.

This situation shares many of the same attributes of the Enron and WorldCom disasters in the US - a looming financial disaster that is kept secret until the house of cards falls. At least the Enron and WorldCom executives went to prison. Perhaps a similar fate awaits the (now former) Airbus execs. After all,their actions defrauded many shareholders and cost the company value.

Avro · Post by **Avro** » 04 Oct 2006, 17:27

One of my postings made beginning of july might be interesting again

Avro wrote:To be honest I don't think the problems are due to the IFE installations.

The core of the problem is in my opinion due to the use of Aluminium wires instead of the usual copper wires.

It's the first time an airliner will have Al wiring systems instead of the usual Cu ones, and IMHO Airbus is facing quite some troubles with that.

I suspect that Airbus has chosen the Al wires for the simple fact that they are lighter than the Cu ones (it's the only advantage Al has AFAIK). It seems they try to save weight desperatly since the plane is too fat. That's also why the Glare skins will constantly be improved up to airframe number 60 (or 50...)...

Being lighter is great, however the Al wires have several disadvantages and this gives them now some troubles as far as I know. Al wires have a higher impedance for the same size as Cu wires. This means that you will either need to have bigger Al wires to compensate or higher currents going through the cables. Airbus will probably not opt for the bigger wires since this will eat up space and weight again.... So the solution would be higher loads. however the higher loads can have higher EM interference as well. This again means that you should either thicken your shielding or separate the cables further away which is quite some hassle.

Further more Al wires have a smaller working limit compared to Cu wires. This means that you cannot rework the path of the cables as much as you could with Cu.

Nobody knows the real truth of the problems at Airbus, but I'd rather suspect all these kind of troubles around Al wiring than the blame on the airlines who came with IFE requirements very late in the program.

I don't want to sound pessimistic or be against Airbus, but I'm pretty sure the A380 will face some troubles with this new kind of wiring during its operationa life as well. Aluminium wiring offers some wieght savings but a lot of other troubles and is also less reliable IIRC.

This being said I'm sure the people at Airbus know verywell what they are doing and I wish the all the best with solving all those issues.

Chris

DFW · Post by **DFW** » 05 Oct 2006, 19:55

Does anyone know how long the government loan guarantees are for the 380? Meaning, several European governments loaned money to Airbus and those loans don't have to be repaid if the 380 loses money. At what point would the loans be forgiven? 10 years? 30 years?

Not trying to start a A vs. B war here. I'm just curious. With all the heavy discounts and late delivery penalties, it can be many years before the 380 reaches breakeven.

airazurxtror · Post by **airazurxtror** » 05 Oct 2006, 20:27

And let's don't forget the social cost for EADS workers will be high, too.
EADS plan to cut the production costs, which means first reducing the work force. No hard lay-off (hopefully) for the moment but, as usual : forced early retirement, no more interim workers, fixed-term contracts not renewed, and so on.
And without any golden parachute like the fat cats will get ...

bits44 · Post by **bits44** » 06 Oct 2006, 06:04

And the trickledown effect has begun, with many more sub-contractors suffering the same set backs, this will hurt a lot of people in many countries.

http://tinyurl.com/gc6r2

Stepha380 · Post by **Stepha380** » 06 Oct 2006, 07:36

airazurxtror wrote:And let's don't forget the social cost for EADS workers will be high, too.
EADS plan to cut the production costs, which means first reducing the work force. No hard lay-off (hopefully) for the moment but, as usual : forced early retirement, no more interim workers, fixed-term contracts not renewed, and so on.
And without any golden parachute like the fat cats will get ...

Lay-off will only be in the PR and marketing department of Airbus, none of the blue collar will be layed off because they have a lot of orders.

Subcontractors will have to slow down the rythm of their deliveries, but it will allow them to deliver the Boeing parts on time. Very few subconstractors have only one manufacturer in their order book.

Stepha380 · Post by **Stepha380** » 06 Oct 2006, 07:45

PYX wrote: The delay has now been stretched out to 2 years. It defies common sense that this all because they can't string a wiring harness. There has to more more serious problems that Airbus is not being upfront and honest about.
They have what, 4 planes built and flying, but none can be delivered because of wiring problems??!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently the wiring problems are due to a wrong wiring software used in Hambourg.
The four aircraft flying are tests airframes equipped with test bays... One for Airbus and three for Etihad (the GP one will be refitted with Trent once the GP certification is completed).
Keeep in mind that every airline has asked for a specific configuration which means a smaller reduction of cost on the scale.

Before posting new messages, read the previous pages...

Stepha380 · Post by **Stepha380** » 06 Oct 2006, 07:47

bits44 wrote:Based on current and anticipated loads and planned future route expansion, you will with the boards approval, order or lease aircraft to cover those needs.

I think you have missed the risk management lecture...