After a second round of delays due to wiring problems, Airbus will be paying Singapore Airlines damages.

Analysts expect it to come up to about S$300 mln.

Singapore Airlines will still be the first to fly a super-jumbo A380, to be delivered next October.

It was supposed to arrive early this year.

So does that figure make up for what SIA could've made between early this year and October 2007?

I think not.

So why do investors seem so happy about this compensation?

Perhaps the gravity of the situation has yet to sink in.

Qantas and Emirates have both expressed their disappointment on the delivery hold-back and have started to review capacity needs.

Even if SIA hasn't publicly announced rethinking the same issues, its executives have got to be scratching their heads now trying to get around this.

Crew originally slated to be A380-trained will have to be redeployed since they can only be safety-trained to operate two fleet of aircraft at one time.

Plans to handle heavily-loaded flights will have to be revised.

SIA's Vice-President of Public Affairs told AFP they are “already missing out on incremental growth on some routes because of the plane's late arrival”.

He adds that for routes like Singapore-London, SIA had wanted to replace the three Boeing 747 flights with the A380.

Before I joined Investor Central, I was flying with the airline as a stewardess.

Several routes like that would always be fully-loaded and I was often told by passengers on those routes how difficult it was to secure seats on those sectors.

This means many would have turned to other airlines for their flying needs.

So SIA exposed their customers to their competition, just like that.

Now if it had the A380 now, things would be very different.

Revenue and profit projections would be very different.

So yes, Airbus awarding SIA damages is good, but it really should not be seen as something THAT fantastic.

In this aspect, we should only start rejoicing when the super-jumbos are brought in.

Whenever that may be.

Serene Lim