Fixing hairline cracks in the wings of its A380 superjumbo has forced Airbus to slow production of the aircraft from 2.7 a month to 2.3, according to a French business news website. This could put in jeopardy its objective of delivering 30 of the aircraft next year and delay a move into profitability per plane to 2015 instead of 2014. Each aircraft – the world's largest passenger plane – costs $389.9m (£241.23m) at list prices.
The slowdown has been caused by the need to stop the development of hairline cracks which have been found in L-shaped aluminium brackets called wing rib feet. A spokesman for Airbus, which designs the wings for all its airliners at Filton, said: “The slowdown reflects the additional time we are committing to the temporary fix [to the rib feet] on aircraft already in the production system.”
As well as designing the A380's giant wings, which are assembled at a sister plant in North Wales, Airbus Filton engineers were also responsible for the plane's fuel system and landing gear.
The European Aviation Safety Agency ordered inspections of all A380s after concluding that one of the two types of cracks found on the rib feet might affect the aircraft’s structural integrity. So far, 24 of the 71 A380s being flown by airlines have been inspected, and 23 have been found to have cracks. The company hopes to restore monthly production back to 2.7 towards Christmas following regulatory approval to use a new version of the rib foot, possibly made from a stronger grade of aluminium.
Airbus parent EADS has made a €105m (£85.86m) provision to cover the cost of repairing wing cracks on the A380s but the figure could rise.
