Airbus said in Paris Saturday that it will delay the delivery of two variants of its new A350 jet models by two years.

The most significant shift is the pushing out of the largest model so Rolls-Royce can provide a more powerful engine. Rolls-Royce is now confirmed as the exclusive engine supplier to the A350.

The A350-1000 (at right, Airbus illustration), which will compete against Boeing's current star airliner the 777-300ER, won't be delivered until mid-2017.

The smallest model, the A350-800, will now be delivered in mid-2016.
The competing Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliners will be delivered this year and 2013, respectively.

At a press briefing, Airbus sales chief John Leahy, chief operating officer Fabrice Bregier and Louis Gallois, chief executive of Airbus parent company EADS, spun the news positively.

The delays are not caused by bungling or production glitches, Gallois said.

The A350 'is the best-managed program at Airbus by far . . . the program is under control," he said. "The changes . . . today are linked not to delays but to improvements in the program."

Leahy said the delay on the largest model, the A350-1000, is to give time for Rolls-Royce to develop a version of the Trent engine with 4,000 lbs of extra thrust that will increase the jet's payload capacity by 4.5 tons and add 400 nautical miles in range.

The jet will also need significant changes to the wing and the landing gear.

That move is no surprise. Boeing has contended for the past year that the A350-1000 wouldn't perform as advertised without a new engine and wing.

Even with the extra range, Leahy conceded, the plane won't make it all the way from Dubai to Los Angeles with a full load -- a specification that UAE carrier Emirates was demanding.

Nevertheless, Leahy said that the revised design means "the A350-1000 is now in a class of its own."

It's true that this is now on paper a much more formidable competitor to the 777. However, Boeing has an extra two years to decide what it will do to the 777 to meet that challenge.

Bregier said the changes will add an extra $9 million to jet's $147 million list price.

Bregier explained that the smaller -800 model is being delayed for another reason: some of the demand for it has melted away as initial customers decided they wanted to switch to the bigger A350-900, which remains on schedule for 2013.

"The first customers of the A350-800 have decided to migrate to the -900," he said. "We have listened to the market."

So far, 42 orders have converted from -800s to -900s.

Asked how airlines had reacted to the news, Leahy said that most of his customers weren't upset because they had been pushing Airbus to make the A350-1000 bigger and to switch from the -800 to the -900.

"Nobody is pounding the table saying: You are breaking my contract," Leahy said.

But Bregier admitted that discussions with existing customers as to whether they should pay more for the extra capability in the revised A350-1000 will be subject to delicate negotiation.

"We'll have to discuss with them," Bregier said. "This is confidential."