Free Republic

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with veterans after attending a wreath laying ceremony with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron at the Arc de Triomphe monument, in Paris, France March 25, 2019. Francois Mori/Pool via REUTERSy Marine Pennetier PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus signed a deal worth tens of billions of dollars on Monday to sell 300 aircraft to China, coinciding with a visit to Europe by Chinese President Xi Jinping and matching a China record held by U.S. rival Boeing. The deal between Airbus and China's state buying agency, China Aviation Supplies Holding Company, which regularly coordinates headline-grabbing deals during...

It's an outcome that rival Boeing anticipated about 25 years ago when it outplayed Airbus with a brilliant bit of judo strategy (using Airbus's strength against itself), according to my 2008 book, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing... As the Journal reported, in 2000, Airbus bet over $10 billion on the 555-seat A380 because it wanted to replace Boeing's 50 year old 747 jumbo jet. The A380 went over budget due to development delays and while passengers liked the plane, airlines preferred Boeing's 787 Dreamliner or Airbus's A350... This A380 denouement was envisioned by Boeing's...

The World Trade Organization on Wednesday faulted the European Union for providing cheap loans to Airbus to help lower its cost for developing new airplanes and take market share from Boeing Co. It's a clear victory for the Chicago-based manufacturer, providing the company with precedence to disrupt similar funding for the up-and-coming A350XWB, which will compete with its 787 Dreamliner. It could also help the company to score a $35 billion U.S. contract to replace the military's aging aerial-refueling fleet. "The ruling shows the WTO works and it can understand the aerospace industry," said Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia, who...

Emirates picks Airbus A350 in $35 bln mega-deal Sun Nov 11, 2007 9:33 AM GMT DUBAI (Reuters) - Dubai-based airline Emirates (EMAIR.UL: Quote, Profile , Research) chose the Airbus A350 XWB over Boeing Co's (BA.N: Quote, Profile , Research) rival 787 airliner on Sunday, taking 70 of them to cap an order that could be worth almost $35 billion at list prices. The deal included options to potentially buy an additional 50 A350s as well as an order for 11 A380 superjumbos as Emirate's extended its lead as the largest customer for the world's biggest airliner. It also bought 12...

With the Paris Air Show less than a week away, Airbus has so far been unable to lure crucial customers to its proposed A350 jetliner despite making sweeping changes to the plane a year ago, giving rival Boeing Co. a major opportunity to cement its market dominance for the next decade. Airbus had hoped to shore up its credibility with customers before the industry's most closely watched trade show of the year. Five years behind Boeing in developing a new midsize long-haul jetliner, Airbus has booked only 13 firm orders for the A350, compared with nearly 600 for Boeing's 787...

Middle Eastern carrier Qatar Airways has signed a memorandum of agreement to buy 80 Airbus A350XWB twin-jets, including the largest version, the A350-1000. The agreement, signed in Paris today, covers 20 A350-1000s, 40 A350-900s and 20 A350-800s with deliveries from 2013. It supersedes a 2005 deal – made before Airbus redesigned the A350 – under which Qatar Airways was to take 60 of the type, a mix of A350-800s and -900s. The carrier had intended to equip these with General Electric GEnx engines; as yet there is no GE engine for the revamped A350XWB, and no engine selection has been...

Airbus is set to make yet another design change to its A350 XWB, this time dumping composite panels on an aluminum frame for an all-composite barrel. Pressure from major customers such as Emirates and ILFC is believed to be the catalyst for the pending revamp. News of the move, first flagged by this website in January (ATWOnline, Jan. 26), comes the same week that Boeing started final assembly on the 787. While Emirates President Tim Clark told media the Dreamliner's finish resembled "a polished silver coffeepot," Airbus has been getting mixed reaction to its composite panel concept. Trade studies have...

PHOENIX — John Leahy may be getting gentler. But he's still the ultimate believer in Airbus. Airbus' chief commercial officer and supersalesman said Monday he's hearing from suppliers that Boeing's 787 could be up to six months late. Though he'd prefer that didn't happen, he added. "In this particular case, misery doesn't love company," said Leahy, "We wish them well, to get an airplane out the door on time." Leahy called the A350, Airbus' challenge to the new Boeing jet, a "world airplane," because, like the 787, it will be built in large sections around the globe. And he predicted...

European manufacturer ready to renew Boeing battle following industrial launch of A330-200F and A350 XWB Airbus may not have been able to produce a surprise winning hand in the order battle for the second year running, but as it loses the order crown to Boeing for the first time in six years, it is confident it can put the trials of 2006 behind it. With its armoury now up to full strength following the industrial launch of the A330-200F and A350 XWB, Airbus has declared itself ready to fight back. Although Boeing's 1,044 net orders soundly beat Airbus into second...

With its industrial launch secured, Toulouse releases more details of the new twinjet that will take on the 787 Airbus still has a number of loose ends to tie up on the design of the A350 XWB in the coming months, as it prepares to go into battle with a definitive specification for the new twinjet to overhaul the huge sales lead that the Boeing 787 has generated. These include finalising the structural configuration, securing a second engine option to accompany the agreement already signed with Rolls-Royce, and agreeing the allocation of work and build responsibility. The airframer released a...

As 787 Matures, Boeing Says Efficiency Improving Aviation Week & Space Technology 12/11/2006 Author: Michael Mecham With 90% of its detailed design elements completed, Boeing says it is finding the mid-size 787 has a 2-3% better economic performance than the 20% overall gain it originally predicted. The improvements are most prominent in predicted maintenance costs, although the airplane is "a bit better on fuel burn" as well, says 787 General Manager Mike Bair. Boeing has forecast that the 787 will have a 20% better fuel burn than the 767 it is replacing. The new improvements have become evident as the...

By now I'm sure you've read that Airbus has gotten the official okay to go out and launch the latest version of the Airbus A350 - the 2nd industrial launch for this airplane in 14 months. And in general, it doesn't appear to be much different from what was announced at Farnborough. The only significant differences that we see at this point are in the areas of: Timing Composites Airbus says we won't see the first A350-900 until 2013 - which is a year later than previously announced. The first A350-800 is now scheduled for 2014, and the first A350-1000...

Airbus kicked off a 10 billion euro ($13.2 billion) plan Monday to build its A350 XWB wide-bodied jet, which is designed to compete with Boeing's successful 787 and boost the fortunes of the troubled European planemaker. CEO Louis Gallois told a news conference that the A350 will be funded through the savings generated by a painful cost-cutting plan, from cash flow and from Airbus' partners. The cost-saving plan was announced in the wake of delays to the A380 superjumbo and management turmoil that has shaken the company and its parent, the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. EADS approved the...

Planemaker says it will build a re-engineered version of the jet to take on Boeing that would enter service in 2013. PARIS (Reuters) -- Airbus parent EADS decided Friday to go ahead with a new mid-sized jetliner to strike back at Boeing in their fight for market share and restore pride shattered by delays to its A380 superjumbo. The pan-European company said its board had agreed after months of uncertainty to build a re-engineered version of the A350, the "extra-wide-bodied" A350 XWB, after an earlier version flopped in competition with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. The market for such 200-350-seat jets is...

EADS is thought to be poised to give the green light to the €10 billion (£6.7bn) Airbus A350XWB airliner programme as early as today. The go-ahead for the project was delayed last week after the French government blocked a proposal from parent company EADS’s two major industrial shareholders, Lagardère and DaimlerChrysler, to tap the capital markets and new institutional investors to raise funds for the venture. Instead, France wanted to inflate EADS’s capital base by raising its own stake in the Airbus parent company, an idea opposed by fellow investors. The setback was a blow for Louis Gallois, the new...

Shareholders at Airbus parent EADS are looking at alternative ways of funding the proposed Airbus A350 XWB widebody twin, which could signal an end to controversial launch aid for the programme. EADS cancelled last week's board meeting where shareholders were due to discuss the industrial launch of the A350 XWB, a €9-10 billion ($12-13 billion) project controversially at the heart of the ongoing transatlantic dispute over support for large aircraft. The meeting was cancelled due to a reported lack of agreement among EADS shareholders DaimlerChrysler, Lagardere and the French government over launch aid, with France thought to be reluctant to...

Shareholders in the Franco-German aerospace group EADS are at war after the Paris government said it wanted to increase its stake in the company to fund development of a new long-range A350 aircraft for its Airbus division. EADS cancelled a board meeting yesterday when France indicated it would block a proposal by the company's two main industrial investors to raise a substantial amount of the aircraft's €10bn (£6.78bn) launch aid from the capital markets. Giving France a higher stake in EADS risks upsetting the delicate political and commercial balance. The French state and Lagardère own 29.99pc through a holding company....

The go-ahead for Airbus’s crucial A350XWB airliner project has been delayed after the French government blocked a proposal from parent company EADS’s two major industrial shareholders, Lagardere and DaimlerChrysler, to tap the capital markets and new institutional investors to raise funds for the venture. France’s fellow investors are understandably lukewarm on that first big decision to be taken by new Airbus chief executive Louis Gallois, has been pushed back. Instead, France wants to inflate EADS’s capital base by raising its own stake in the Airbus parent company, an idea which has met a lukewarm reception from its fellow investors, sources...

Shareholder concerns over the funding of the Airbus A350XWB programme has meant Airbus parent EADS has reportedly cancelled a board meeting scheduled for today. The meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Toulouse to decide on the industrial launch of the A350XWB, was cancelled at the last minute yesterday evening, reports French business daily Les Echos. An employee of EADS shareholder Lagardere confirms the meeting has been cancelled, but was unable to immediately give further details. DaimlerChrysler declined to comment, while EADS could not immediately be reached. Citing industry sources, the report claims the reason for the cancellation is...

IRBUS would decide before the end of the month on whether to go ahead with its A350 jetliner, with the launch dependent on the success of a restructure, chief executive Louis Gallois said today. The A350, a long-haul mid-sized plane, has been drawn up by Airbus as a competitor for Boeing's popular 787 Dreamliner and 777 long-haul planes, but its development costs have been estimated at $US10 billion-$US12 billion ($13bn-$16bn). Mr Gallois said the A350 program depended on implementation of a restructuring plan aimed at slashing production costs, cutting jobs and streamlining suppliers to the Toulouse-based group. "We will not...