A380 Over Budget By Between $500mn – $1.6billion

clicky

The CEO of Airbus, Noel Forgeard, has said in an interview with Le Monde that R&D costs for the A380 programme will be between 5% to 15% higher than the original budget of $10.8 billion (i.e somewhere between $500 million & $1.6 billion).

He said that the production price for each plane is in line with budget, so it should just be a one-off higher payment.

The article also confirms that the first test flight will be in March (just 3 months ), two months after the official roll-out on Jan 18 with Tony Blair. Gerhard Schroeder & Jacques Chirac in attendance.

That means they’ll need to sell 5 to 10 more to make up for it I supose.