An agreement on sharing the cost overruns on the delay-plagued Airbus A400M military plane is possible by the end of the year, an Airbus executive said on Friday.
As the military cargo carrier was set to make its first test flight Friday at the Airbus site in the southern Spanish city of Sevilla, the company's chief operating officer warned the seven countries who have ordered the plane face sticker shock.
"The countries must accept an increase in the price of the plane," Fabrice Bregier was quoted as saying in the daily La Tribune.
"It won't be an increase on the order of three percent, it will be significant," he added.
Airbus launched the A400M programme in 2003 with a 20-billion-euro (28-billion-dollar) contract with seven countries — Germany, Spain, France, Britain, Turkey, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The plane was originally planned to be put into service by the end of this year, but technical problems to the turbo propeller aircraft have sent costs soaring and the first planes won't be delivered before the end of 2012.
French and German newspapers have speculated the cost overruns could total five billion euros.
Bregier reiterated the goal of reaching a deal on sharing the cost overruns by the end of the year.
"I belive it's possible to accomplish," said Bregier, who is also a member of the executive committee of Airbus' owner, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).
The two companies aren't trying to shift all the additional costs onto the countries, said Bregier, and they recognise their "share of the responsibility" for "not having managed the programme with the necessary rigour for a long time."
The outcome of the talks is crucial for EADS, which already has put aside 2.4 billion euros in provisions against losses on the A400M project and has not excluded new charges.
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