'Risks remain' for A400M as further development and retrofits progress, says Airbus

Airbus has delivered 129 of 178 A400Ms so far ordered. The company says that development activities continue towards achieving the revised capability road map, though “risks remain”. (Janes/Gareth Jennings)

While development activities continue towards achieving the revised capability road map for the A400M Atlas transport aircraft, Airbus said on 30 October that “risks remain”.

Reporting on its nine-month 2024 financial results, Airbus said the new capability road map agreed between the European defence agency, Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR), and the A400M's seven partner countries is progressing to plan, but that work still needs to be done to get the programme to where it needs to be.

“On the A400M programme, development activities continue towards achieving the revised capability road map. Retrofit activities are progressing in close alignment with the customer. No further net material impact was recognised in the first nine months of 2024,” Airbus said, adding, “Risks remain on the qualification of technical capabilities and associated costs, on aircraft operational reliability, on cost reductions, and on securing overall volume as per the revised baseline.”

Programme problems

The A400M programme was launched in 2003, although the project was nearly cancelled in 2009 with Airbus citing an unrealistic delivery schedule, insufficient funding, impossible requirements, unrealistic workshare demands, and the need to have the aircraft certified by each of the individual national authorities. These errors were supposedly put right when the programme was completely restructured in 2009, with the flight-test programme and deliveries that followed proceeding at first on schedule and according to plan. However, further programmatic and technical problems related chiefly to the EuroProp International (EPI) TP400-D6 turboprop engine caused the delivery schedule to slip.