It’s official–new A350 delay

EADS, parent of Airbus, reported that there will be a three month delay for the A350 EIS due to wing drilling issues. We reported on July 6 we expected a delay of 5-6 months and earlier this week linked to an article suggesting one month. Here is an article synopsizing the information. The Wall Street Journal has this article.

This represents a 15 month delay for the A350 XWB-900 EIS. It’s unclear what, if any, cascading effect this will have on the A350-800 and the A350-1000.

Airbus said the program remains “challenging” and the linked news articles indicate this.

We’re skeptical of all new airplane programs given the recent history at Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier (CRJ1000) and, if you want to add it in, COMAC’s ARJ21 (though this one might be a bit unfair to include with the legacy OEMs). We would not be surprised if the A350 has additional delays between now and EIS.

But one thing we are seeing is that Airbus is coming forward sooner with delay acknowledgements than it did on the A380 and Boeing did on the 787. We have to give Airbus credit for being more forthcoming than in the past.