Originally Posted by
JoWa
Thanks!
I think the key line here is:
"The Airbus chief, however, shouldered ultimate blame for the supply chain problems. “It is our responsibility to make it work,” he said. “We have issues that go beyond Zodiac.”
Zodiac reportedly have a back log of some 300 SEATS, i e one plane.
But Airbus have a back log of 760 PLANES.
With the current production rate (that despite of promises since long time refuses to take off) it will give the last customers their ancient planes by 2070..
Also the supply chain problems can´t be the reason why AY #4 has been sitting with no test flights since Dec 4.
Or why there´s only been one test flight alltogether this year, inspite of four planes sitting in the flightline.
As far as I know, no planes are moved to flightline if they are not complete.
Yep, you are spot on right in this. It is Airbus, not Zodiac, that is responsible for delivering the planes on time agreed, and Airbus is responsible for having all parts needed early enough to be able to deliver on time. Of course we do not know the delivery schedules on the contract between AY and Airbus, but can just assume the delivery delays are quite severe already, and I wouldn't like to be the key account manager at Airbus listening complaints from customers in big letters. I have been wondering the same test flight issue as well, and haven't seen any speculation of the reason. The situation sounds weird indeed.
Zodiac having backlog of 300 seats cannot be right, as alone undelivered AY A350s make twice that many in J-seats alone, and the same seats are now being delivered into quite a few other airlines as well. Zodiac has had problems for quite some time now, in November shortfall of deliveries delayed has been reported being ~1500 economy seats, and deliveries of premium seats have being even more problematic. They are reportedly planning to get back to normal in 18months! AY is not the only one suffering from this, for instance deliveries for AA retrofits have been delayed up to one year, and in the autumn AA cancelled their agreement on seat deliveries for 787s, after a few of those brand new birds had to be stored at desert as they they didn't have seats for those new and otherwise ready planes!