Airbus has presented “a realistic development and production schedule” to the A400M partner nations, CEO Tom Enders said here in Paris on Tuesday. Ahead of next week’s meeting in Seville with the defense ministers, Airbus won’t answer detailed questions about the plan in public. But they seem to have convinced one customer already: French defense minister Herve Morin said here yesterday that he could see “light at the end of the tunnel.”
Morin acted as the de facto spokesman for all the partner nations and he insisted that his German, Spanish and British counterparts have no intention of giving up on the program. However, “there will be extra costs, no matter what happens,” he added. These would include the buying or leasing of alternative aircraft to meet the airlift shortfall in some countries, including France, he said. Germany was seeking “real transparency” on this point, while the UK was setting some conditions.
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