Schadenfreude and Airbus re-unite yet again

I had previously blogged this: More on Airbus Crashes: Schadenfreude

Life is good if you hate Airbus. Now they’re having fuselage problems. They’re trying to minimize the publicity, but a fuselage problem is a very serious problem. Anyone who gets on one of these planes is nuts. They’re going to force that thing out the door to minimize any further embarrassment and then they’ll be forced to ground the fleet when they start falling out the sky. Boeing is dusting their pants and rightfully so.

Airbus Admits A380 Fuselage Problems
By ANGELA CHARLTON (Associated Press Writer)
July 24, 2006 7:08 AM EDT

PARIS – Airbus acknowledged Monday it had reinforced the rear fuselage of its superjumbo A380 after problems were detected, but insisted the issue did not cause any further delays in the plane’s production timetable.

Airbus spokeswoman Barbara Kracht sought to play down a report in German weekly Der Spiegel on Monday describing troubles with a section of fuselage in the rear cone of the world’s biggest passenger plane.

A “minor” problem was discovered with a section of the fuselage during a trial flight in Toulouse, Kracht said. The fault was fixed in April, she said. She would not reveal estimates of how much the reinforcement cost or give any other details. Kracht said it did not cause any adjustments in the double-decker plane’s production schedule, which has already been pushed back more than a year.

Der Spiegel said internal Airbus documents showed that at the beginning of March, the company decided to strengthen the problematic fuselage – resulting in extra costs and extra weight. The report did not elaborate on the problems.

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