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"Summary
Airbus battles to keep flagship twinjet on service entry target as suppliers baulk at late design changes without being compensated.
Analysis
If the A350XWB is indeed delayed, this should come as little surprise. After the five debilitating delays to Boeing’s 787, Airbus too is learning that composites present a new technical challenge in their own right when employed for primary fuselage and wing structures.
As I noted here, Airbus is lacking funds from the to foot the $17.5bn program bill and as a result, key suppliers now fear that late design changes to address the near 7-ton overweight airplane will inevitably force Airbus’ hand in pushing back initial deliveries from 2013 to 2014, possibly even beyond that.
Of the key first tier suppliers on the A350XWB program, many have had to self-fund work for redesigned components required to provide additional reinforcements to the fuselage and wings.
Where Boeing has patents on its monolithic composite fuselage construction method for the 787, the jury is still out as to whether the panel approach for the A350 using cured composite sections will yield similar benefits – particularly as the A350 requires far more body joins (that add weight) than the 787
Airbus has already confirmed that much of the extended time allocated to the A350XWB program has been exhausted, further threatening the remaining timescales as the company incorporates significant changes to the center sections of the airplane as well as strengthen the composite wings to better cope with the higher than expected empty fuselage weight.
Already projected to be 1% over its specific fuel consumption target, the baseline A350-900 forms the key platform for the shrunk A350-800 and the larger A350-1000, the latter which has had very poor market traction as customers continue to order the bigger 777-300ER.
Financial constraints led by the A380 design changes and indecisiveness over the $44bn A400M programs means that Airbus problems are clearly starting to spill over into the A350XWB.
The length of any A350XWB delays will be as long as the problems that precede it – in the absence of any milestones on the program to date, the silence only intensifies belief that Airbus is delaying the inevitable reality that it will miss its 2013 service entry target."
