Aircraft

Senior Airbus officials are optimistic that they can will be able to deliver on the new production schedule for the A380, but concede that challenges ahead remain.

The plan is to deliver 13 aircraft in 2008, 25 in 2009 and to be at a steady rate of four a month by the end of 2009.

The first 25 aircraft will involve substantial amounts of "hand-built" processes and it is only by the end of 2009, says chief commercial officer John Leahy, that the cycle will be truly industrialised.

He says the lengthy delays suffered so far have had one benefit, noting: "The delays have been a two-edged sword. We have used the extra time to make sure the systems were more mature than they otherwise might be."

Airbus chief executive Tom Enders says: "Today we are delivering on time, as we said a year ago. There is a challenge ahead of us, but we have improved processes and there is every reason to believe that we will make it."

He says it has been possible to begin moving people on to the A350 and A400M programmes, noting: "We have three important programmes going on. We have already transferred resources from the A380 to the A400M and the A350.

"But it is no secret that this is a tight situation as far as resources are concerned. However, they are at very different stages and so they require very different resources and skills.

"We still have more than 1,000 workers from Germany working in final assembly in Toulouse. We will obviously work to reduce that, but for some time to come in the next wave we will see a considerable number of workers here in Toulouse."