Airbus is aiming to deliver at least 20 A380 aircraft this year, the airframer believing that it is making good progress on smoothing the production process.

Speaking during a briefing at the company's UK manufacturing plant at Broughton, executive vice-president of programmes Tom Williams said production was "rapidly maturing".

Out-of-sequence work on the final assembly lines is "decreasing constantly", he adds - citing a seven-fold reduction since early 2007 - and the focus has turned to stabilisation.

Between the beginning of 2009 and last November, Airbus halved the amount of outstanding work at A380 final assembly.

The airframer also reduced the backlog of production drawings by 80% and the time to resolve queries by 40%.

Williams says production is "moving in the right direction" and Airbus is looking to deliver "20 or over 20" of the type this year.

Airbus is planning to take production to three aircraft per month, he adds, although a rate increase beyond this is "not the most pressing issue".

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news