 PARIS - The two-year delay to the Airbus A380 is proving costlier than expected, parent company EADS said Wednesday in a profit warning that sent shares lower as the aircraft maker confirmed it had lost its five-year lead in orders to Boeing. Airbus won orders for 824 airliners last year, the company said -- well short of both Boeing's 1,050 tally and its own industry record of 1,111 in 2005 -- but delivered 434 planes to its U.S.-based rival's 398.
Despite the production crisis blighting the double-decker A380, 2006 was ''the best year ever in terms of deliveries and the second best year in terms of sales,'' said EADS co-Chief Executive Louis Gallois, who also heads Airbus.
| Both of which are crumping: the orders now, and deliveries in the next year or two as the slump in orders catches up. |
Shortly before the orders announcement, EADS said an unspecified fourth-quarter accounting charge tipped Airbus into an operating loss for 2006 that will ''roughly balance'' earnings before interest and tax from other divisions. Hans Peter Ring, chief financial officer for both EADS and Airbus, said the ''bulk of the charges'' were previously disclosed but had now been brought forward -- including costs linked to the A380 setbacks and restructuring plans. ''We're accepting a bigger hit in 2006 to prepare a better future,'' Ring said, declining to provide any breakdown of the losses. The A380 problems would wipe 4.8 billion ($6.2 billion) from 2006-2010 profit, EADS said last October.
| That's a lot of money to suck out of the pockets of Euro taxpayers. |
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