Airbus Global Forecast 2006-2025: 22,700 passenger and freight aircraft valued at $2.6 trillion will be required by aircraft operators

The Airbus A380 superjumbo in the livery of Emirates Airline, flies low over the beachfront at Dubai, as it arrives for the air show in November 2005

Emirates is the the biggest customer for the aircraft and said at the end of October this year, that it would send a team of auditors to Airbus factories to see if delivery of the superjumbo will be delayed for a fourth time, the company's president said. ``If they are going to delay further we need to know because we can't afford to be let down again,'' Tim Clark said today in a phone interview from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Clark said the airline did not have plans to cancel or suspend orders such as Virgin Atlantic Airways did, after construction problems forced Airbus to delay delivery of the A380 for a third time in 16 months to August 2008. Clark said he's considering the Boeing Co. 747-800, its newest version of the plane, to ``supplement'' the A380 order.

Emirates is the biggest Arab airline, is one of 16 customers that have placed a total 159 firm orders for the 555-seat double-decker A380, designed to be the world's largest passenger airplane. It is expected to cost at least €13.5 billion euros to develop, is now two years behind schedule and 5.5 tons overweight, according to Clark.

``The delay is a massive revenue loss for Emirates but we're in no rush to demand compensation or cash back at this stage,'' Clark told Bloomberg News. The company has 45 A380s on order. ``We just want the airplane.''

Airbus parent EADS (European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co.) estimated on Oct. 3rd that delays to the A380 delivery will cut €4.8 billion from earnings through 2010. The company's shares have fallen over 30% this year.

Gulf News reports that Airbus engineers say they are happy the A380 superjumbo has been delayed as it gives them more time to test the world's largest passenger airliner.

A team of Airbus pilots and engineers arrived in Al Ain International Airport in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, last month for a series of hot weather tests on the A380 - and Gulf News was granted exclusive access to the top secret test site.

In an exclusive interview, Manfred Birnfeld, Senior Flight Test Engineer for the A380, said: "For the engineers we're very happy because it really gives us time to look very closely at things.

"It was obvious at some point in time that delays had to be announced... I feel easy talking more openly than a few months ago when we were speaking of one date," said Birnfeld before the first of a series of tests yesterday morning.

Birnfeld said engineers predicted that delays were "very probable" and this became increasingly obvious as time went on.

"It's not something we knew from the beginning, but when we started it was obvious to the practice team that time (for delivery) was short."

The wiring problems blamed for the delivery delays of the Airbus A380, which sparked a series of boardroom shake-ups at Airbus parent company EADS, stem from the extensive customisation demands of its clients.

Birnfeld added: "There's a major manufacturing issue with wiring because we allowed an extreme degree of customisation. Every customer had their own ideas and we let them develop them while the airplane was already designed and the parts had been built.

"It was appropriate for doing the job, but if you don't keep up with your modelling to have necessary wiring at the right time, it's not quick... there's so much information that necessitates major design work."

While assembling the wiring in the cabin of the first A380, Airbus engineers found that the computers were outdated and were not compatible with other parts.

"There was something odd in the product system and they had to review the wiring model. Now they can start producing new wires. This takes time," says Birnfeld.

Without specifying, he added that "there are other problems, but this is the major thing."

Commercial wiring involves passenger services such as video-on-demand, telephones, faxes and other gadgets.