The cost overruns mean the program will not make a profit with only its 174 firm orders, so there is a strong incentive to earn as much as possible from parts and repairs. Initial rounds of talks on this point were held early in the development phase, but few concrete agreements have been reached. Other countries are likely to make adaptations to the French approach, one executive says.

First delivery will be followed by a busy period of production ramp-up and capability upgrades scheduled to be completed in 2018.

MSN007, the first delivery aircraft, has been transferred to the flight-test center and is expected to make its initial flight next week. The delivery process, to be started in mid-April, is expected to last around six weeks.

If Airbus can meet the schedule, it will achieve first delivery of the much-delayed A400M and first flight of the A350 before the Paris air show.

Currently four other A400Ms are in various stages of completion on the final-assembly line here. MSN008, MSN010 and MSN011 will also be delivered to France, while MSN009 will be the first aircraft for Turkey.

Airbus Military expects the first parts for MSN012 to arrive within the next two weeks. In addition to handing over four aircraft this year, the company aims to deliver 10 in 2014, all of which will enter the final assembly process before year-end. Production of parts has been launched for aircraft up to MSN029.

Following the deliveries to France and Turkey, the U.K. is scheduled to receive its first aircraft in September 2014, Germany in November, Malaysia in January 2015 and Spain in January 2016.

The latest of many snags leading to the compounded delays was the detection of metallic chips in the oil system in one of MSN006's TP400 engines. Airbus suspended function and reliability testing after 160 of 300 planned flight hours. Greater than expected imbalance of the fan contributed to the mechanical issues, industry executives say, including damage in the gearbox. As a consequence, software had to be developed to more closely monitor vibration levels. The latest version of that software was delivered before the end of last year, but an engine retrofit on the first three aircraft will be needed in 2015 mainly to replace the gearboxes.

Function and reliability testing was also completed in December 2012. One of the test aircraft was taken to Northern Canada in February for the cold-weather campaign, exposing the aircraft to temperatures as low as -32C (-25F).