A320neo

> Airbus flew the A320neo for a year in flight test, and now deliveries are held up by the engine-cooling issue. Why wasn’t that caught earlier in the process?

This was not a certification matter, it was about performance acceptance by airlines. It also came up pretty late in flight tests, and Pratt & Whitney had no time to fix it before certification. But what counts is where we stand now. And now we see very good performance at entry into service. This is confirmed by the airlines, which communicate very positively. They see higher fuel-burn savings than what we committed to. That is a very strong positive point. We see that all the false-alarm soundings in the cockpit have been fixed so crews can fly the aircraft. The start-up time has improved to something that looks acceptable for the airlines. And the maturity issues also were fixed. We can ramp up more aggressively in the second half and have advanced the production of some aircraft to make sure we can meet our year-end target.

> How quickly will the new standard Pratt engines be introduced?

We will deliver the first aircraft to Lufthansa this month. One set [of engines] is on a test aircraft, we need to complete some tests, but the first customer [aircraft] will come soon.

> How many of your famous gliders have you built?

Around 25 A320neos are awaiting engines. This looks like a big number. However, it is only two weeks of production. It is not 25 A380s. We are now actually advancing the production of some aircraft, otherwise we would not be able to meet the year-end target. It is not easy and not ideal, but I believe we can manage it.