“This is the moment of truth, where everything that hass been designed has to be produced,” Airbus Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier told the French Aerospace Journalists’ Association in Paris. The program “requires a production quality that some suppliers weren’t used to.”
Airbus, which has already pushed back the plane’s first delivery by about six months to late 2013, is keeping the revised schedule, Bregier says. The long-range A350 is a twin- engine plane that follows rival Boeing Co. (BA)’s lead in making increased use of composites to reduce weight and save fuel.
While production of larger composite panels is well prepared, manufacturers are struggling with some smaller, specialized parts such as wiring clips and stiffeners, Bregier says. Airbus is seeking to avoid further delays and the cost overruns that dogged its A380 superjumbo and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Lessons
“The lesson we’ve learned from the A380 is that you shouldn’t begin assembly too early,” says Bregier. “It’s more important to get everything right, so we’re not taking any shortcuts.”
The size of the A350, which will seat 300 to 350 passengers, puts it in competition with Boeing’s 777 model already in service and the Dreamliner, which starts at 270 seats and is scheduled to enter service later in September -- three- and-a-half years later than originally promised.
Airbus plans to discuss progress on the A350 at the Paris Air Show, which beings June 20. Bregier said today that the first delivery to Qatar Airways Ltd. is still on schedule.
Airbus had 574 orders for the A350 as of the end of April. That included all three variants, the A350-800, the A350-900 and the A350-1000. The mid-sized A350-900 is first of the three types scheduled for service.
The planemaker is scheduled to start assembling the first A350 by the end of the year, at a plant in Toulouse that has been built for the purpose.
The A380, the most recent civilian jet created by Airbus, is 25% made from composites. Bregier said Airbus expects to deliver about 25 A380s this year, and the rate will increase in 2012, though no figure has yet been decided. Airbus is scheduled to start assembling the first A350 by the end of the year in Toulouse.
Airbus expects to have more than 500 orders in its books for the A320neo single-aisle jet by the end of the Paris Air Show, which begins June 20, Bregier said. The planemaker already has won 332 orders and commitments for the plane, with many of the commitments to be firmed up at the show.
By Laurence Frost and Andrea Rothman, Bloomberg