Planemaker Airbus announced another delay in deliveries of its A380 superjumbo on Tuesday, deepening the woes of Europe's biggest industrial project.

Airbus said it was unable to boost production as quickly as it hoped as it tries to recover from two years of production delays caused by problems in installing the wiring on the world's largest passenger plane.

"As a result, Airbus plans now for 12 (instead of 13) deliveries in 2008 and 21 (instead of 25) in 2009. Details about the new plan and the further ramp-up and delivery slots in 2010 and the following years will be discussed with customers in the coming weeks," it said in a statement.

It gave no details on the financial impact of the latest delays for the world's biggest passenger airliner, which is already two years behind schedule.

"The extent of the additional costs will be influenced by the actual production and delivery scenario. This will follow discussions with the customers and a more precise evaluation of the implications of the new delivery schedule for 2010 deliveries and beyond," it said.

The announcement sent shares in Airbus parent EADS down 0.6 percent to 15.65 euros.

It was the fourth time Airbus had announced delays in delivering the 525-seat double-decker plane. But the damage to the production schedule was not as severe as some had expected.

"It's not a big surprise. The financial impact should also be minor but it's really hard to estimate," UniCredit analyst Stefan Halter said. "Given the number of affected planes -- we are just talking about five planes -- the impact really should be minor.

"They now have to enter negotiations with the airlines. The impact very much depends on which airline is affected," he said.

The fresh setback to the A380 came days after Airbus was forced to scrap plans to sell some of its factories to attract investment in new materials for the A350, a future mid-sized jet needed to catch up with rival Boeing.

It also came weeks after Airbus announced a major review of production on the A380.

It said last week chief executive Tom Enders had written to all A380 customers telling them production had reached a critical phase.

Tim Clark, the powerful head of Emirates which is by far the biggest A380 customer with 58 planes on order, has warned the airline faced "serious damage" from any further delays. - Reuters