Airbus may be forced to put A380s in storage this year if customers aren’t ready to take delivery of the asset.

Although Airbus is officially sticking to its target of building 18 A380 this year, the company’s chief operating officer for customers, John Leahy, acknowledges the number of aircraft to go to customer could be lower. A recent Bloomberg survey of A380 customers indicated only 15 A380s would be handed over in 2009.

In a briefing to analysts last week, Leahy said not all airlines are onboard for their scheduled 2009 deliveries, but that it is basically too late to do anything but finish building the aircraft and then putting it in storage.

Here's how Leahy explains it: "if someone is going to defer an airplane in 2009, and I don’t know if you are going to hear about that or not because we have the capability of building 18 airplanes now, we haven’t worked things out with all the airlines. But an airplane that you might hear being deferred in 2009, if you hear it, would be an airplane that is probably going to be built and put in storage and then the airline is just going to have to come to grips with that.”

If A380 customers want to defer later production that would be easier. Leahy notes since the airplanes aren’t built, there’s more flexibility in the system.

However, he adds that any rescheduling would come along with other airline changes, including Boeing 777s, he insists, adding it's not an A380 issue. Air France, in fact, has already said it would do just that.

The Airbus position on holding firm on 2009 A380 delivery positions also applies to other aircraft types. If customers say they want to defer orders, they have to focus on aircraft not yet built or in build – which effectively means 2010 or later delivery positions – and that they pretty much have to take 2009 slots.