Wing cracks won’t affect Airbus sales

BEIJING - Airbus will quickly work to fix cracks that have been discovered on its A380 and the problem will not affect the superjumbo’s sales in Asia, the European aircraft manufacturer said on Tuesday.

"We will fix it as quickly as possible and whatever it costs. It is too early to say more at this point," Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus, said at the Singapore Airshow, which started on Tuesday.

"I am quite sure that we will sell a lot of the A380s in future keeping in mind that it was a program deliberately devised to last some 40 to 50 years," he said.

Enders added that Thai Airways and Malaysia Airlines will start flying A380s this year and he is positive that the aircraft's sales in the region will not be affected because of the problem.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued the Airworthiness Directive on January 20th, insisting that after working for more than 1,800 flight cycles, the A380 fleet should be checked for cracks on their wing ribs. EASA extended the checks to aircraft approach 1,300 flight cycles last Friday.

China Southern Airlines Co, which is the only Chinese carrier using A380s, does not need to carry out the check yet, because the airline’s first A380s have only worked for 445 flight cycles.