A400M delay opens up supplier rift

摘要

Airbus Military's revelation of further delays to the A400M's first flight obscures the timing of future deliveries and reveals new cracks in the relationship between the airframer and its propulsion supplier. Airbus says the impact of the latest delay for the first flight -which was originally scheduled in January 2008 and has now slipped into 2009 - upon costs and delivery schedules can only be "reliably assessed" after further discussions with customers. But the structure of the fixed-price development and production contract for the A400M exposes Airbus to heavy losses due to the costs of a prolonged development cycle and penalty payments to customers for missed delivery targets. "This was bound to go horribly wrong," says Richard Aboulafia, vice-president analysis for Teal Group. "It is to the best of my knowledge the only single fixed-price contract that covers both the procurement and development phases."