Then you missed the memo:
Thursday, Jun 22, 2006, 10:44 a.m.Should the A380 be euthanized?
Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia -- in a letter to clients view link that's sure to land him on the VIP to the Airbus doghouse at Farnborough, and not the Airbus chalet -- is suggesting that it's time to pull the plug on Team Toulouse's failed experiment with the A380.
Aboulafia argues that the A380 is the flawed result of an even-more-flawed system, built for political, not economic, reasons. Airbus must now make an immediate and "brutally honest" assessment of the program, he writes.
Key Quote: "If there is no hope of quickly turning the A380 into a competitive plane with decent economics and then shifting design and production resources to more important segments, kill it. The write-offs and political shame will be terrible. But national, continental, and corporate pride should have nothing to with what is essentially a business decision. More importantly, the alternative to keep going and risk losing everything is worse. There isnt a lot of time here, and its tough to learn from fatal mistakes."