Airbus Working To Solve Emirates A380 Issues

Airbus said on Sunday it was taking very seriously the issues Dubai airline Emirates had raised about its A380 superjumbos and was working on solving any problems.

Germany's Der Spiegel weekly said Emirates officials had presented Airbus managers with a list of defects in the world's largest aircraft at a meeting in Toulouse in February.

"We take the criticism and the feedback from Emirates very seriously," an Airbus spokeswoman said. "We are doing everything we can to overcome the issues and we are working very closely with our customers to solve that."

"We have a lot of minor, unrelated issues. We are working with them to solve the issues as quickly as we can," she said, adding that Airbus held regular meetings with its customers to get feedback on its aircraft and discuss any issues.

Emirates, the biggest buyer of the A380, has ordered 58 of the superjumbos and received its fourth plane in December.

An Emirates spokeswoman confirmed on Sunday that the carrier had met Airbus executives to give them feedback on the A380's reliability performance.

"Technical issues are expected with new aircraft, particularly one that uses many new technologies," she said. "Emirates has a good relationship with Airbus and we continue to work closely with them to address these technical matters. Airbus is pulling out all stops to sort things out."

The spokeswoman said that Emirates' remained confident in the A380, adding that it was an "excellent" aircraft and that feedback from its customers had been "very positive". She said the company had no plans to cancel any orders.

Der Spiegel said said that Emirates gave a 46-page presentation in Toulouse, telling Airbus officials about heat-damaged power cables, defective engines and numerous malfunctions.

The planes have lost 500 hours of flying time due to grounding to deal with problems, Der Spiegel said.