A Weekend of Setbacks Dims Prospects for Airbus's Top Seller
- New issues with Pratt-supplied engines forces delivery halt
- Disclosure marks latest in a series of operational problems
A Pratt & Whitney turbofan engine sits on the wing of an Airbus A320neo aircraft.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
As last weekend approached, Airbus SE was closing in on a firm order for at least 20 of its marquee A380 superjumbos, a contract that promised to keep production going for at least a decade. And lawyers were putting the final touches on a $99 million settlement that shut the door on a five-year bribery probe involving sales of Eurofighter jets to Austria.
Then late Friday, the positive momentum unraveled. Airbus was caught out by European regulators investigating a new problem on engines supplied by Pratt & Whitney for its best-selling A320neo, a single-aisle jet that may lack the prestige of the A380 but is far more important to the bottom line. Soon it emerged that Airbus was halting deliveries of Pratt-equipped models, including to the plane’s biggest customer, India’s IndiGo.