Aircraft

Airbus Military has begun fitting out the first fuselage of the A400M military transport and says the programme is “meeting all contractual milestones” as it approaches delivery of a major review next month.

But Tom Enders, chief executive of Airbus parent company EADS, seems less certain about the longer-term health of the programme. Enders suggested in a briefing to analysts in mid-October that there were “challenges” that needed identifying “for improvement action plans”.

He added that while the aircraft’s design and performance guarantees are “apparently met”, further scrutiny on “margins and contingencies” was needed, hinting that the management structure of the programme might be “tuned” as it moved from development into production.

One analyst at the briefing said it was clear that the programme was functioning on a “just in time” basis.

 

© Airbus Military
Airbus Military says it is meeting all the A400M's contractual milestones

Concerns about the A400M are increasingly being expressed in other quarters. One major supplier says: “We hear that in terms of performance, weight and timescale, the programme is at the upper end of the margins.” He points out that the requirements of the Airbus A380 and A350XWB commercial programmes would drain any engineering resources required to solve A400M problems, potentially threatening further disruption to the delivery timescale.

In early October, Christian Streiff, then Airbus chief executive, told UK daily newspaper the Financial Times that the A400M timetable was “exactly on the edge. It is a tense situation with a number of suppliers internally and externally. We are exactly on track, but without any reserves.”

A400M management agency OCCAR says it sent a report to the six partner nations in mid-October detailing the findings of the internal audit carried out by EADS.

The fuselage that is now under construction will be delivered to the final assembly line in Seville, Spain in February 2007 and production of the second fuselage is under way, says Airbus Military. First flight is due at the beginning of 2008, followed by delivery to the first customer, France, in October 2009.