Air France ground staff take a souvenir photo of their company's first Airbus A380 double-deck passenger jet after a christening ceremony at the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris yesterday. Air France has taken delivery of its first Airbus A380 during a a hand-over ceremony at the manufacturer's site in Germany as they become the first European airline to fly the double-deck aircraft on scheduled services.

HAMBURG: Airbus might delay delivery of some of the 13 superjumbo A380s scheduled for this year until January 2010, the European planemaker said yesterday.

The Toulouse-based aircraft manufacturer, a unit of European defence and aerospace group EADS, also said client financing remained difficult and it would take time for the business environment to return to normal.

“We are still aiming for 13 (A380) deliveries but one or two could come in January,” Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier said on the sidelines of a ceremony for the delivery of Air France-KLM’s first A380.

“Everything will depend on airlines’ capacity to take these planes at the end of the year,” he said. Air France-KLM has ordered 12 A380s. The first one will be put into service in November on the Paris-New York route.

Airbus’s chief executive, Thomas Enders, also said it was “too early to relax” over customer financing and to believe it was guaranteed.

Customer financing helps airlines raise funds to order and take delivery of aircraft, but the past year’s financial crisis has put pressure on traditional sources of credit.

Enders added the overall A380 delivery rhythm in the first half of 2010 should be “similar” to the current rate.

Last month Airbus cut its A380 delivery target to 13 from 14 for 2009. As of today, it has delivered seven.

Airbus, just like Boeing, gets the bulk of payments for its aircraft on delivery. On the basis of catalogue prices, which can differ significantly from prices paid, an A380 can fetch $330m.

However, faced with lower traffic, many airlines have been cutting capacity. Industry body IATA expects international airlines to suffer combined losses of $11bn in 2009.

Meanwhile, the European planemaker, expects to match the number of planes it delivered last year in 2009 but said the A380 superjumbo programme was still challenging.

“We’re on track to repeat the 2008 delivery record of 483 planes in 2009,” said Tom Williams, Airbus’s vice president of programmes at a briefing at its Broughton, north Wales plant yesterday.

A drop in global passenger demand has Airbus and US rival Boeing (BA.N) headed for their worst annual order tally in at least 15 years as airlines cancel and defer orders, weighing on the whole aerospace supplier sector.

Airbus has booked 149 gross orders — before cancellations — this year. Its target is 300 orders for 2009, meaning it has a lot to make up in the fourth quarter.

Williams added that the A380 programme was “still challenging” and “not running as smoothly as we would like”.

The euro is also causing a headache for European manufacturers. The currency has been lingering around $1.50 after hitting 14-month highs, hurting European manufacturers as production costs in their home currency rise compared to dollar-denominated sales abroad.

Airbus’s owner EADS has stepped up calls for action to help European exporters cope with the weak dollar.

Airbus also said the new A400M military transporter aircraft would fly before the end of the year.

On the new A350 passenger jet Williams said the company would start producing 10 aircraft per month and that its first flight would be in late 2012.

Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines (THY) said it will buy three more A330 aircraft from European manufacturer Airbus, in addition to seven others ordered earlier this year, and two cargo planes, the company said Friday.

The three passenger carriers, scheduled for delivery in 2012, were an optional clause in a June order for seven aircraft.

THY has decided to go ahead with their purchase, according to a statement with the Istanbul stock exchange.

THY will also buy two A330-200F cargo planes from Airbus, to be delivered in 2010 and 2011, the company said in a separate statement.

The June order included also seven B777-300ER aircarft from Boeing.

The orders are made as part of an ambitious plan THY announced last year to expand its fleet with up to 105 new aicraft by 2023.

Its fleet currently comprises 130 planes, which fly to about 150 destinations.

The company has rapidly grown in recent years, increasing the number of its passangers by 74 percent to 22.6 million from 2005 to 2008, according to company figures.