Comparing the delays that have affected two major aircraft programmes:

Airbus’s A380 and Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. The “chaos” that led to delays to the A380 superjumbo emerged from much intricate assembly of the plane’s wiring. Above all, the programme was plagued by faults in communication between the group’s various plants in different European countries. Indeed, problems in Germany were not immediately communicated to France, recalls the newspaper. In addition, the Hamburg factory did not use the same software than its cabling colleagues in France. To minimise damage, Airbus has now temporarily returned to manual cabling. In Boeing’s case, the new production system put in place has been called into question.

Teal Group, one of the main consulting firms specialised in defence,

assessed that EADS and Northrop Grumman will probably retain the $ 35Bn tanker contract awarded by the Pentagon last month, though Boeing’s protest could delay the award process. In a new study, the consulting group deemed that the US plane maker has very little chance to put the contract award into question. Richard Aboulafia, vice-president of Teal Group, said, nonetheless, “there is a 50 % probability that the contract could be delayed by one or two years, due to political considerations or a successful complaint with the GAO and a new bidding process that would be related to that appeal”. He also valued at more than one-third the chance that Congress allows the Pentagon to grant additional budget in order to allow a purchase from Boeing,

Etihad Airways is in talks with Airbus and Boeing.

The Abu Dhabi-based airline is in talks with the two plane makers as it intends to order between 50 and 100 aircraft this year, “to be delivered from 2012”, said its managing director James Hogan. He declined to provide further details. AFP (13/04), Le Figaro Economie, La Tribune

On a style and design perspective, the 12 private suites on Singapore Airlines’s new A380s

are hard to beat. The suite-class is compared with the cabins on a luxury ship. But upgrades have been brought to the economy class too. Wider seats and more legroom are offered to passengers. The entertainment system has been improved too. Time (21/04)

Airbus targets the Japanese aviation market.

Louis Gallois said Airbus hoped to sell A380 and A350 aircraft to the Japanese airlines this year. The plane maker owns 4 % of the Nippon aviation market only, compared with about 50 % on a global scale, he told journalists in Tokyo. “There are major fleet renewal needs [in Japan] and, obviously, we want to grab our slice”. Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who started an official visit to the archipelago on Friday, urged his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, to work on an opening of the Japanese market, in particular the civil aviation market, historically dominated by Boeing.

The executive committees of EADS and Airbus will meet this week,

today and tomorrow respectively, to discuss the Zephyr plant sale programme. Sources told the French Sunday paper that Airbus will be forced to retain majority control of its German sites as no bidder is on the run. The powerful union IG Metall asks EADS to regroup these sites into a 100 %-owned subsidiary, a much likely scenario, said the sources. Hence, Airbus must now decide whether it sticks to its plans to sell off 60 % of two of its French sites to Latecoere. Last week, France’s FO and CGC unions urged Louis Gallois to respect “equity” between the sale programmes in France and Germany. An EADS spokesman said no decision will be announced this week and declined to comment on the press report. AFP (13/04), AFX (13/04), La Tribune, Le Figaro Economie, Les Echos, Le Journal du Dimanche (13/04)

EADS share suffers “scandalous under-evaluation”.

The aerospace group’s share, indeed, did not react to the announcement that Airbus had won nearly 400 net aircraft orders in the first quarter of 2008. Airbus sells plenty more aircraft than its rival Boeing, points out the weekly. Besides, Airbus has a dynamic aircraft development policy: after launching the A330 cargo version last year, it is currently defining a cargo variant of its A320 in cooperation with Russian partners. Still, the market remains cautious about EADS, following leaks of the AMF report that warn of a fall of Airbus’s future profitability, allegedly written down in the group’s books as soon as June 2005. L’Hebdo-Bourse Plus (11/04)

Aer Lingus confirmed that it had ordered twelve aircraft from Airbus.

The national Irish airline has ordered six long-haul A350-900s and six A330-300s for $ 2.4Bn, at list prices, saying in a statement that it had been granted “substantial discounts” by Airbus. The 12 aircraft should be delivered between 2009 and 2016. Aer Lingus also placed an option for “six additional A350 planes that could be delivered between 2016 and 2018”. AFP (11/04), Reuters (11/04), Le Figaro Economie, Les Echos

EADS tests the ‘police station of the future’ in Elancourt,

in the Paris area. Le Parisien goes back over the partnership initiated by EADS, the municipality of Elancourt and the community of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, in the Paris area. The aerospace group will supply its latest technological innovations to be tested by police, security and rescue forces in real conditions. Jacqueline Argence, an EADS manager, explains that “the goal is to check whether these technological advances developed by EADS engineers allow genuine progress on the field for people to whom they are destined”. Le Parisien (12/04)