Abu Dhabi: Airbus Group is confident it’s delayed and over-budget A400M military airlifted “will sell in good numbers” with Middle East customers expressing interest in the programme.
“We are working on recovery … the interest here is high,” Marwan Lahoud, chief strategy and marketing officer at the Airbus Group, told reporters at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Airbus has so far booked 174 orders for the airlifted but landed just the one export customer, Malaysia. Development costs have been over run by more than €5 billion to €25 billion due to challenges in meeting customisation demands from its seven launch customers. The aircraft is in service with Turkey, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — all launch customers.
“There are no more hurdles going forward … We are confident that it will sell,” said Habib Feikh, president of Airbus Middle East.
Last month, Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, apologised for the problems suffered in the programme. A day later the European firm appointed a new executive to lead its military plane operations. Fernando Alonso, previously head of flight test operations at Airbus, has stepped up to run the unit, with Domingo Urena-Raso, who has spent 32-years at Airbus, moving on to a yet-to-be announced position.
While Lahoud moved to reassure concerns over the programme finding a new non-European buyer he declined to comment whether Middle East interest in the A400M meant there would be a deal this year.
“Interest is high but as I said the timeline is decided by the customers,” he said.
The Middle East, particularly the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, is becoming increasingly important for military sales as Europe and other developed countries cut their defence spending.
Lahoud dismissed concerns that low oil prices would see a change in attitude towards military spending by Gulf countries. “We are in a period of procurement in the region,” he said.
The Middle East accounted for “slightly below” 20 per cent of Airbus’ defence and security revenue in 2014, according to Lahoud.
