Japan Refuses To Fly Airbus Superjumbo

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 12-8-2003 | Andrew Clark

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the info. When a plane is on fire, 90 seconds is a long time, I think!

[avg_freeper]

I have pictures of what was left of the wing structure. They were lucky. The aft beam was compromised and the whole wing nearly departed outboard of the engine.

Every time a design engineer complains about by conservatism in my analysis I should show him a picture of that wing.

[avg_freeper]

"by conservatism" => "my conservatism"

[americanbychoice]

One of the problems for us is the government subsidies that puts boeing at a disadvantage.
For years, Airbus sold their planes at no interest. Now they sell thier planes in Dollars, not Euros.

[gcruse]

Hope you got a small desk. It pixellates.

[COEXERJ145]

One of the problems for us is the government subsidies that puts boeing at a disadvantage. For years, Airbus sold their planes at no interest. Now they sell thier planes in Dollars, not Euros.

And they're still selling them cheap as heck because of the same subsidies or as the E.U. calls them, "low interest loans". For some "odd" reason, the loan payments keep getting deferred and the loans are never paid back.

[cmsgop]

WOW! How Scary. Did your buddy have nightmares about it must have been heart wenching to see that.

[cmsgop]

Funny side note . About 3 weeks ago I saw a NW DC-10 take off from Sea-Tac. I thought they phased those out?

[Central Scrutiniser]

They still got a few, they are being phased out too. NW hangs on to its planes for a long time, as they own lots of their planes. They take care of their planes though. The 747-200's and DC-10's are being replaced with A330's and the DC 9's are being replaced with 319/320's. They have a pretty cool new paint job now.

[the invisib1e hand]

Now they sell thier planes in Dollars, not Euros.

semantics (or perhaps smoke and mirrors). they pay their labor and materials in euros, no?

[americanbychoice]

yes, they do. However, they sell their planes in dollars to have a protection against currency fluctuations.

[the invisib1e hand]

that's an after-thought. boeing can sell their planes in euros if they wish, converting them to dollars after the sale, and they still would be cheaper on the world market than the same craft built for euros. airbus can price their craft in dollars if they wish, but it cost them euros to build it, and right now euros are more expensive than dollars. to compete on price, they not only have to narrow their profit margins, they run the risk of sizeable currency loss as well. (I don't know how long losses can be subsidized by a fledgeling superpower...but I know it can't go on forever).

we potentially have a meaningful price advantage in the lower dollar.

[americanbychoice]

i agree. Japan just pulled out of the A380. They are about 180 planes short of breaking even. The Eurinals still believe that they have the moral superiority to stick it to the US>
I do support the low dollar. It will help balance our trade deficit. (with a few exceptions)
Long term the dollar will increase again. A lot of things contribute to the decline, like interest rate differential, etc.
The Eurinals are bankrupt. I hope they won't recover.