Airbus is benefiting from the smooth introduction of the A350-900, which entered service with Qatar Airways in January and there are now 4 aircraft in operation.
“The entry into service has been great and word is spreading that it’s living up to its all promises and more in service,” said Christopher Buckley, executive vice-president for Europe and Asia Pacific.
“The biggest obstacle with the A350 right now is that we just don’t have them fast enough,” he added, in reference to Airbus’s conservative policy on the production ramp-up.
However Airbus is working hard to secure additional business and Buckley said he’s “pretty confident that we’ll have at least 2 brand new A350 customers by the end of the year”.
Meantime, Airbus is taking advantage of its ability to offer early delivery slots to secure A330 deals as it transitions to the re-engined A330neo in 2017, but is not having to offer significant discounts to secure orders.
Based on the article “IATA: Airbus selling A330 on early availability rather than price” published inFlight International.
At last, they are beginning to wake upto the fact that production is very slow-if it had been more aggressive and in keeping with its original programme then they would have had 30 or more A350's in customers hands; which would then give them a much better base to sell more.The original programme was 5 per month this year. Like I've said all along,what matters to airlines are their aircraft (A350's)on the ground. Lets all hope they (Airbus) dont drag their feet with the A350-1000.
ReplyDeleteCould you show me an aircraft programm which delivered 30 frames in the 1st half year of production? I guess every wanabee couch managere like a step ramp from zero to full, but the reality are production ramps like this.
DeleteYes anonymous, I understand but look at this site; https://sites.google.com/site/a350xwbproduction/productionlist and you will see that it is not the first six months. It should have started way back in 2013. So to say 30 aircraft over 2.5 years is exceptional is a bit strange.
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