Airbus wins Lufthansa deal, superjumbo fears loom

FRANKFURT/PARIS, Sep 20 (Reuters) Airbus won a plane deal potentially worth over billion from German airline Lufthansa on Wednesday but faced rising media speculation that it will soon be forced to announce another embarrassing delay to its new A380 superjumbo.

Lufthansa's supervisory board said it had approved plans to buy 30 single-aisle planes from Airbus's A320 family, would take options to buy a possible 30 more and would buy five of the larger A330 model.

A spokeswoman for Lufthansa declined to comment on whether the airline had received a special deal on the A330-300 planes in compensation for delays to the 15 A380s it has on order.

Lufthansa said it would decide on buying additional mid-sized and larger planes by the year's end.

The deal marked a loss for Boeing Co., which had on offer its single-aisle 737, but the U.S. planemaker is still in the running with its mid-sized 787 and the newest version of the jumbo, the 747-8.

Airbus is also keen to sign up Lufthansa for a desperately needed order for its fledgling A350 XWB model, and for additional orders of its A380 to prevent Europe's second-largest airline from replacing its large fleet of ageing Boeing 747 jumbos with newer ones.

Airbus's 12-billion-euro ( billion) A380 programme to produce a new class of mammoth plane is already overdue and triggered an EADS profit warning and management shake-up in June.

On Wednesday, a report in French newspaper Les Echos, which did not cite any sources, said Airbus could announce a delay of at least six months for its first deliveries to clients such as Air France, and only four deliveries next year to Singapore Airlines and Emirates.

''According to our information, the assembly problems at the Toulouse-Blagnac plant would not allow it (Airbus) to hold to its last pledge of delivering at least nine aircraft in 2007 (against 25 initially planned),'' the newspaper said.

Air France confirmed that it had been informed by the planemaker that changes to delivery schedules were in the works.

''Air France, like other companies, has been informed that there will be a new A380 delivery programme and we're waiting for Airbus to inform us on this matter,'' a spokeswoman for Franco-Dutch group Air France-KLM said.

A delay announcement would be the third major setback in a programme still in search of enough orders to break even.

An Airbus spokeswoman said the Les Echos report was ''speculation''.

''We have been undertaking a full review of the A380 programme since the summer. It is not finished yet. We will communicate after the EADS board meeting on Sept. 29,'' she said.

''We are of course very happy with their (Lufthansa's) decision, particularly coming from a long-time customer like Lufthansa which shows the interest in the market for our products.'' EADS shares shed as much as 4 percent in early trade as one brokerage downgraded the stock and the French media report triggered fears of more bad news, yet the stock recovered, closing up 0.4 percent at 22.84 euros.

An EADS spokesman in Germany said checks into the A380 delivery delays were not yet concluded. ''There are still no results at present.'' Analysts expect Airbus to announce the findings of a 100-day study into Airbus's operations ordered by new Chief Executive Christian Streiff in coming weeks.

Some expect Streiff to favour getting the bad news out of the way quickly, including a possible one-off charge in EADS's accounts stemming from delays in launching the mid-sized A350 model.

Airbus has struggled to market the A350 in the face of strong demand for Boeing's 787 which is due 2008, now likely beating the Airbus to market by four years.

So far this year, Boeing had taken orders for 585 planes, more than twice rival Airbus's latest tally of 222 as it struggles with its new models.

The A380's woes stem from complications in wiring the massive double-decker planes and have sparked calls for compensation from customers, some of which have hinted they might reconsider their orders.

Emirates has ordered 43 of the aircraft -- by far the largest order of the plane which has a list price of 0 million. It said at the weekend it had not yet considered cancelling its order.

IXIS Securities analyst Lorraine Thoumyre said in a research note that she was cutting her rating on EADS shares to ''reduce'' from ''buy'' while keeping a share price target of 23.90 euros.

''The accumulation of multiple rumours and comments create a stack of presumptions which give credence to a new delay of the A380,'' she said.

Airbus has been rocked by the A380's woes and its fitful efforts to launch the A350.

The decision by 20-percent shareholder BAE Systems to sell out of the planemaker has not helped sentiment, either.

Russian flag carrier Aeroflot said on Wednesday it would go ahead with plans to buy the Boeing 787 but that it also planned to buy the Airbus A350 later.

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