WOW:Read bold.Airbus Throws Party for A380 Superjumbo
TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) - Planemaker Airbus threw a huge media party on Tuesday for the A380 -- overweight, overbudget and still on the ground, but hailed as the world's largest airliner which its designers say will reshape aviation.
French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero were among 5,000 guests invited for a first glimpse of the A380 in Airbus colors.
The largest civil airliner ever built was being kept behind an eight-storey high black curtain ahead of its 5 a.m. EST inauguration at the A380 final assembly plant in Toulouse.
Airlines have committed almost $40 billion to buying the 555-seat double-decker superjumbo, expecting it to lower operating costs and boost profits flattened by high oil prices and a slowdown in global aviation and tourism since 2001.
Airbus has 149 orders or commitments from 14 airlines for the aircraft which is due to take its first test flight in March or April, according to Airbus chief Noel Forgeard.
It is due to enter service in 2006.
"If there is something we are not worried about it is the commercial success of this plane," Forgeard told RTL radio.
"We'll sell a lot more than 250," he said referring to the breakeven sales target for the plane which costs about $260 million to buy and is expected to deliver a 15 percent gain in costs per seat-mile compared to the Boeing 747-400.
"We'll sell 700 or 750. You know it's a plane which will fly for 30 or 40 years."
Speaking at a news conference, Forgeard confirmed for the first time that Airbus was in talks to sell A380 planes to China and said he was confident of a deal by Easter, or late March.
Deutsche Lufthansa chief Wolfgang Mayrhuber said he expected the airline to raise its order for 15 planes.
COSTS
The plane is costing Airbus and its shareholders EADS, the European aerospace group, and BAE Systems some 12 billion euros to develop including 1.45 billion euros of cost overruns linked in part to efforts to keep its weight down.
"We are about five tonnes over the original spec weight but that is less than 1 percent of the 560 tonnes maximum take-off weight," commercial director John Leahy said on CNBC television.
"Airlines are not at all concerned," he said. It has however, been a nagging concern for investors in parent EADS, whose shares eased 1.8 percent to 23.3 euros early on Tuesday.
Leahy, the suave American sales chief who has outsold arch rival Boeing in the past two years to seize leadership of the commercial jet industry, says the A380 will make the 747 obsolete just as the legendary jumbo jet had pushed older models to the graveyard when it took to the skies 35 years ago.
Boeing has already dismissed that suggestion, saying the A380 will lag sales of the original jumbo jet for years.
The mammoth A380 has room for 70 cars to park on its wing and looks rather like the hump-backed Boeing 747 but with the top section stretching all the way back to the tail.
Airlines will be able to configure the plane according to the service they want to sell, with some opting for an Upstairs-Downstairs feel with posh frills on the upper deck.
Others will be able to pack more than 800 passengers in an all-economy layout on both decks for charter flights.
Virgin Atlantic is taking no chances -- it will offer a beauty therapist area, a gym, a casino and double beds.
"Since you have gaming and you have private double beds maybe there are two ways of getting lucky on a Virgin plane," Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson told reporters.
(Additional reporting by Jason Neely, Kerstin Doerr, Tim Hepher |
