However it will be still long until the program starts to earn money

Despite the postponement of two years of the first deliveries, the Airbus A380 is now officially good for the service. At the end of nineteen months of trials and more than 800 flights without major problems, the authorities European and American issued yesterday its airworthiness certificate, will a ceremony which brought together some 250 persons at Toulouse-Blagnac, opportunity for Louis Gallois and the leaders of the European aircraft manufacturer to attempt to re-brand the A380, the first delivery to Singapore Airlines not intervene before October 2007. While deploring the industrial problems that led to delays in delivery, officials point to good performance of the aircraft, compliant they commitments. Initially found overweight have particular offset by better than expected performance of motorization.

Despite this technological success, 2006 should be completed without any new contract come to add to the backlog for the A380, 149 firm sales and 17 options. In recent weeks, the very large carrier even suffered several setbacks, with passengers the cancellation by the purchase of ten version cargo Fedex and transformation by ILFC of an order for five A380 freighter version. The launch of the cargo version, which is more than a single UPS order, seems compromised. At the same time, the Boeing 747-800 passengers, its main competitor, recorded his first success last week with an order of 20 copies by Lufthansa. Airbus has still not completed its negotiations with the different client companies of the A380, on delay compensation to be paid, leaving poses the risk of new cancellations.

Rosy Outlook for commercial

According to our information, the trend seems to the rally on the commercial front. The audit carried out last month by Emirates to verify the capacity of the aircraft manufacturer to deliver on its promises to would be revealed positive, thus eliminating the risk of cancellation on the part of the main customer for the A380. Singapore Airlines (SIA), which also threatened to cancel an option on nine additional aircraft in July, has also confirmed its purchases. "We have not yet concluded our negotiations with Airbus, but we do not intend to cancel our orders", said Saturday last in the "Echos" Chew Choon Seng, CEO of AIS on the margins of a meeting of the Star Alliance in Istanbul.

Same signs of relaxation in Thai Airways, which, after having threatened to cancel its order for six A380s, could soon announce the purchase of eight A330-300, surrendered at a good price by Airbus as compensation. At the beginning of the year, the aircraft manufacturer also "offered" of A330 to Qantas, to compensate for the delays in the A380.

However, it will be still long until the program starts to earn money. After the announcement of the latest delay, the threshold of profitability, initially set at 250 delivered aircraft, was pushed back to 420 copies. Assuming that Airbus might be able to deliver 84 devices expected by 2010 and to reach the rate of production of 50 units per year from 2011, this threshold of balance could not be reached before 2017!