Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) has confirmed that the launch of its A330neo aircraft will not happen before 2018, reports Flightglobal. Flight tests with the Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engine aboard will take place at the end of summer 2017.
"We will install it during the summer and fly at the end of the summer," said Didier Evrard, Executive Vice President and Head of Programmes at Airbus.
Launch operator TAP Portugal (Lisbon) indicated in December 2016 that a delay was likely. Chief Executive Fernando Pinto said then that TAP expected to take delivery of the first of its fourteen A330-900neo in the first quarter of 2018.
The holdups are due to development delays on the side of Rolls-Royce.
