The co-chief executive of EADS said the company doesn't need to be restructured following production delays of the Airbus A380, and said the company would meet its delivery targets this year.
In a speech to the Business Press Club of Stuttgart on Tuesday night, Tom Enders, said the problems at Airbus did not warrant a change in how its parent company, European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., operates.
"The problems at Airbus don't mean that we are a case for restructuring," Enders said.
The comment came a week after Louis Gallois, who replaced Noel Forgeard as France's top executive at EADS, issued a joint statement with Enders pledging to make a "recovery" at Airbus the top priority.
"We'll work hard and we'll work jointly to bring EADS back on course," the two said.
The crisis at the Franco-German defense group followed its announcement last month that the 555-seater A380 was likely to suffer new delays of up to seven months.
The news caused EADS shares to plunge 26 percent on June 14, and France's Financial Markets Authority said it was investigating Forgeard and five other directors who sold EADS stock just weeks before the company ordered an internal assessment of the production problems.
Enders said that Airbus was on track to meets its delivery targets this year.
"I can say with near certainty that we will deliver more than 400 aircraft in the current year," he told the group, adding that production capacity would be completely utilized within four- to five-years.
"But we aren't eager to take on contracts that aren't profitable," Enders said. "To date there have been no cancellations of the A380."
He also said that despite delays in deliveries of the A350, customers have not canceled their orders. He did not offer any concrete delivery date for the model.
"We are working on it very intensively but we don't feel that we are tied-down to any particular date," he said, explaining that the company would rather take its time to develop a superior product than rush it out in a bid to compete with rival Boeing.
"This is better than offering a "me-too" plane," he said. "Returning to timetable punctuality will be a big issue for us."
Over the longer term, Airbus is likely to take initiatives to optimize the development of new models and make production more flexible, Enders said, following a complete analysis by new CEO Christian Streiff.
"We will try to shorten the aircraft development time and speed up the time it takes to ramp up production," Enders said.
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