Airbus Postpones Launch of A350 by Six Months

EADS NV, the Dutch company involved in aerospace, defense and related services has pushed the launch of A350 jetliner by 6 months.

EADS, the parent company of Airbus SAS has taken charge of about 273 million (200 million euros) from the third quarter accounts and thereby giving itself more room for delivering the new strategic long range jetliner A350XWB.

The new Airbus A350 is a lightweight aircraft built with carbon composites and is expected to enter service during the first half of 2014. The new A350 is the competitor for the Boeing Company (NYSE:BA)’s 787 Dreamliner. The six month delay has trimmed the profit earnings of the third quarter which has beat the analysts’ expectations as the company did a good job in stabilizing  the costs of its A380 superjumbo project. EADS’s shares rose after the company increased its outlook for the year.

Airbus, in a statement following EADS’s third quarter profit announcement did not give any explanations for the six month delay in the delivery of its A350s. These new A350s are expected to be 25 percent more fuel efficient compared to the normal jetliners as it makes use of advanced light weight carbon composite materials and aerodynamics. The engineers have faced a lot of setbacks throughout the prolonged development of A350. The final assembly of A350s is slated to start early next year and these aircrafts will be ready to enter into service by the first half of 2014.

Airbus SAS and Boeing continue to be the leaders in the aircraft market which is worth more than $70 billion in spite of unstable and slow economy I the United States and Europe. Orders for aircrafts from Asia and Middle Eastern countries have forced these players to boost their output to meet the demand.

The operating profit of EADS dropped 15 percent to322 million euros during the third quarter as the company’s revenue stood at 10.751 billion euros after a 4 percent drop. But the net income of EADS rose to 312 million euros. After upgrading its bestselling A320s, Airbus is expecting to receive about 1500 orders in 2011 alone as compared to the earlier expectation of 1000 orders which is al set to beat the previous record of 1,111 orders in 2005.

The delay of A350 program and other individual models will benefit Boeing by allowing it to gain some breathing space for its 787 and 787-9 programs.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.