Super-jumbo is super-late

Scripps Howard: When Airbus announced plans for a super-jumbo airliner and the plane, the A380, actually flew last year, it seemed as if America's Boeing Co. had been permanently eclipsed as the world's leading supplier of passenger aircraft. Certainly Airbus' European owners thought so.
Airbus, headquartered in Toulouse, France, surpassed Boeing in orders for new aircraft in 1999, and, except for one year, has been slightly ahead of the U.S. company ever since. And when Boeing declined to answer this challenge to its venerable 747 with a new jumbo of its own to concentrate on a budget aircraft, it looked as if the former leader was resigned to second-class status.
Suddenly, Boeing's call is looking not only gutsy but farsighted marketwise -- and profitable. Now it is Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" -- which is smaller, but far more economical to operate -- that looks like the plane of the future.
And Airbus is looking at a loss of over one-fourth of its market value in a single day and a reduction of $2.5 billion in revenues between now and 2010.
Major delay
Airbus was forced this week to announce the second major delay in deliveries of the A380, greatly angering the airlines who had contracted to buy it, causing some of them to reconsider their planned purchases and one, Singapore Airlines, to order 20 Dreamliners for $4.52 billion. Indeed, the future of the Airbus jumbo is in question.
Meanwhile, the 350, the airliner Airbus planned to compete with the Dreamliner, is running into production problems, and its first deliveries may be three years behind the Dreamliner.
It is a stunning reversal of fortune. And the upshot, one industry analyst told the Associated Press, is: "Boeing is eating Airbus' lunch, certainly this year. And they'll do it again next year and for the foreseeable future, unless Airbus can pull a rabbit out of a hat."
The victory has to be especially sweet for Boeing because Airbus benefited from subsidies from its French, German, British and Spanish owners.