OK, I’m back in the office after taking off the week of Thanksgiving, which I spent mostly cooking and gloating over WSU’s Apple Cup victory. (Thanks, Cougs!)
And as I plow through all the stuff that piled up while I was out, here’s a story that caught my eye — Emirates chief Tim Clark tells Flight International http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2005/11/29/Navigation/177/203386/Emirates+wary+of+A350+promises.html that the problems Airbus is having delivering the A380 on time and to spec are giving him doubts about Toulouse’s ability to deliver on the A350.
Key Quote: “While the larger size of the A350 over the 787-9 makes it the front-runner, Clark says recent experiences with new Airbus types not meeting all the manufacturer’s promises is partly responsible for Emirates’ indecision. ‘The A350-900 is a brilliant machine if it does what Airbus says it will, and we’ve told them that misses [on performance or delivery promises] will be unacceptable.’”
Meanwhile, EADS co-chairman Noel Forgeard bristles at talk of how the A380 — launched while he was Airbus CEO — is behind schedule, according to this report from ITP, a publishing company with a range of business and technology magazines across the Middle East. http://www.itp.net/business/features/details.php?id=3463&category=
Key Quote: “‘I’m totally fed up with these dramatised stories about delays,’ he says, irately. “Instead of delivering the A380 in the second quarter of 2006 we are delivering it in the fourth quarter. In the history of civil aviation this is a very moderate delay — all the airlines know this — it’s a six-month delay — not the end of the world.’”
The delays don’t seem to be an issue for Air Madrid, which — according to Flight — is close to a 15-jet order for A350s. http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2005/11/28/Navigation/177/203309/Spain’s+Air+Madrid+said+to+be+closing+on+A350+deal.html
Key Quote, from airline chairman Jose Luis Carrillo: “‘Nothing is finished as yet, the negotiations take a long time, but in principle we’re going for a homogeneous fleet of A350s,’ Carrillo says.”
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