Airbus to swap Finnair's Zodiac seats amid A350 quality concerns

Airbus will refit Zodiac Aerospace seats on all of Finnair Oyj’s A350 wide-body jetliners because of quality issues, said the airline’s CEO, Pekka Vauramo. Entire business-class berths must be replaced on the nine A350s that Finnair has in operation, Vauramo said in an interview at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Cancun, Mexico. The changes will be timed to coincide with a major maintenance round due at the end of this year. The plan underscores the struggles of Zodiac, which French engine-maker Safran has agreed to buy for E8.7b, in maintaining quality and ramping up deliveries of Airbus’s marquee wide-body. The planemaker last year handed over 49 A350s, one short of its target, only after a December surge that saw previously manufactured jets fitted with delayed interiors. “With Zodiac we have issues. Earlier deliveries were affected, not the recent deliveries, now it seems to be better under control by Airbus,” Vauramo said. “But there are still quality issues, there’s still a lot of rework on our aircraft that needs to be done.”<br/>