The spectre of armed guards patrolling the high California desert near Victorville guarding one or more of Airbus's behemouth A380s moved a step closer yesterday with the announcement that Airbus and SQ have agreed to defer deliveries of 6 copies. With QF doing the same - it looks like several early adopters are pushing out their deliveries. Another telling sign is that EK's latest schedule is somewhat bereft of A380 routes.
Hmmm given the amount of lead time to build these puppies - it is not that easy to shift them around in the delivery schedule. I maintain that the current recession could have been much worse for both of the big 2 manufacturers if they had been firing on all cylinders on their flagship programs - the A380 and 787 respectively. Imagine if A380s and 787s had been pouring off the lines in both Everett and Toulouse as was originally envisaged. In that case one could well imagine that quite a few of them would have flown straight to the desert.
Cheers
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