Jobs at risk as Airbus threatens to pull plug on A400M
By Hundreds of jobs are at risk after Airbus threatened to scrap its £20billion programme to build the A400M military aircraft.
The much-delayed A400M made its debut test flight from San Pablo airport, near Seville, Spain last month – after a delay of more than a year and £10bn over budget.
Roll out: The A400M before its maiden flight last month (Picture: Aergenium)
The massive aircraft carries the hopes — and futures — of hundreds of workers at the two companies. Airbus’s giant Filton plant is building the wings for the plane, the European company’s first for the defence market, while at Rolls-Royce’s neighbouring Patchway plant, engineers are working on the all-new TP400 engine, the most powerful turbo propeller in the Western world.
But the Financial Times today reported that Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, said European governments had to come up with more money for it before the end of this month.
The threat is seen as a last desperate bid by the aircraft maker to increase the pressure on the partner governments that have signed up to the programme, particularly Germany, to finance the cost overrun on the troubled project.
“We need to stop this constant drain on resources,” he told the paper. “We’ve asked the governments to take their share of the burden and this needs to be done as soon as possible.”
Technical problems linked to complexity of the engine, designed and produced by a four-nation European consortium which includes Rolls-Royce, held up its first flight by more than a year, while the project was rocked in November when South Africa cancelled its order for eight A400Ms, blaming rising costs and delivery delays.
Airbus launched the A400M project in 2003 with an order for 180 planes from seven European countries including the UK. However, these countries — which need the aircraft to replace ageing transporters such as the RAF’s Hercules fleet — will not receive their aircraft before the end of 2012.
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