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In another blow to their superjumbo jet project, Airbus parent EADS confirmed that the project will be delayed for another year.

Two of the companies that have placed orders are seriously considering the implications of what this means to their strategies. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. and Emirates — the largest A380 customer — are hinting that the new delays may lead to cancellations of the order. If some of the defections do happen, it will lead them to Boeing, which is also in the process of developing a 400- to 500- seat version of its 747 in response to the A380.

Another serious repercussion is that it is causing huge impact upon the future profits of the company as this alone, without any cancellation of orders, is already projected to take $3.6 billion from the projected profits of the project.

Chicago Business reported:

"Airbus CEO Streiff reiterated Tuesday that the latest production holdups — which leave the program two years behind its original schedule — were caused entirely by problems with the installation of the 300 miles of wiring aboard each plane. 'This is the only weak link in the production chain.'"

H. Gousse / AP file

From a management way of looking at it, this is a disaster. If the problems weren't physical, I might think differently, but this is something that shouldn't have been that difficult to measure. These companies know exactly, from past experience, how long it takes to lay a certain amount of wire in a plane. How could they possibly be two years off in projecting the time it would take to do it?

There are two things to consider in answering that question. First, they made the announcement knowing that they probably wouldn't be able to bring the plane to market within the timeframe they said they could. This is an old strategy of getting customers to commit emotionally, which makes it hard to back out of the agreement. Most companies, on deals this big, have a certain amount of experience in knowing that something unforeseen could happen and put the project back.

The problem for Airbus is that it went way beyond the standard period of waiting that is normally acceptable. Think of Microsoft with their Vista project that did the same thing. Companies make announcements so that they can try to pre-empt their competitors in the market. When it works, it's a great strategy; when it doesn't, it can be a disaster. This could potentially reach the disaster proportion if anything else goes wrong.

Measurement of physical work shouldn't be this far off. Either this management team has some holes in their pipeline, or they knew from the beginning that they couldn't do it...but made the promise that they could. Either way, any more problems with this and it could backfire on the companies involved.