European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has given the assurance that local aviation company Denel Saab Aerostructures (DSA) will not have to pay any penalties to it.

Chapter 4 of South Africa’s Medium Term Budget Statement, released on Tuesday, under the heading “Revised expenditure estimates, 2009/10”, stated “R192-million for Airbus’s (sic) claim against Denel Saab Aerostructures, subject to verification, for DSA’s failure to meet performance targets as part of the 2004 acquisition of eight A400M aircraft”.

“Airbus can confirm that there are definitely no penalties being invoked against DSA, or against Aerosud for that matter,” states European group local spokesperson Linden Birns.

“On the contrary, we’ve made more resources available to both companies, to help them meet their performance targets.”

(Both State-owned DSA and private-sector Aerosud are risk-sharing partners in the A400M programme.)

Further, the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and DSA have jointly issued a statement affirming that “DSA has met its targets in terms of its contracts” for the A400M.

The statement points out that the company has received funding of R192-million from the government during the current financial year.

The company had expected to start the production phase of the A400M contract last year, but delays in the programme resulted in the design phase being extended. Those delays, the statement diplomatically omits to point out, have predominantly occurred in Europe.

“The design of the A400M structure has raised South Africa’s engineering skills base,” highlight the DPE and DSA. “DSA has also developed a composite facility to global standards.”

DSA is responsible for the top shells for the centre fuselage section – these can be thought of as being equivalent to roof panels. The company is producing two top shells for each aircraft – one each in front and behind of the wing box, which joins the wing to the fuselage. In addition, it is making very large wing/fuselage fairings, manufactured mainly from composite materials but including aluminium parts. Each such fairing is 15-m long, 7-m wide, and nearly 3-m high. Denel is also contributing the ribs and spars for the tail fin, and centre wing box structural components.

Aerosud is mainly responsible for secondary structures on the A400M. These are – nose fuselage linings, cargo hold linings, and cockpit linings, but the company is also making the cockpit rigid bulkhead, the wing tips, and the nose fuselage galleys. The wing tips are quite important because they will contain elements of the aircraft’s defence aids subsystem.

Other South African companies which have won contracts from Airbus for the A400M are Grintek and Omniples, while Armscor is providing engineering services. A total of 192 A400Ms are on order by nine countries.