Posted on 07/15/2006 11:06:36 AM PDT by lowbuck
European aerospace firm, EADS, will this week launch a drive to restore its credibility before the world’s aerospace industry at the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire.
The centrepiece will be a flying display by the A380 super-jumbo – the world’s biggest airliner – along with a series of presentations by Airbus, the airliner manufacturing subsidiary that accounts for 80% of EADS profits.
Instead of launching the A350 medium-sized long-haul plane with which it hopes to compete with Boeing’s hot-selling B787 Dreamliner, as it had earlier hoped, Airbus’s new boss Christian Streiff, will update airlines on overhauling the A350 design.
Thomas Enders, the German co-chief executive of EADS, set the tone last week, when he said Airbus was in no rush to launch the revised A350 design – expected to be renamed the A370.
Enders conceded Airbus had “underestimated” Boeing’s B787, which has secured more than 400 orders from the world’s airlines though it won’t take to the air until 2008. Airbus has gone back to the drawing board with the A350 and is now determined to produce a larger plane that will outperform Boeing’s B787 and B777 models.
Enders said Airbus was working on the revised A350 design, expected to cost E8bn ($9.8bn, £6.5bn) to develop, “but we don’t feel linked to any particular calendar,” he said. Having lost the race to be first to market, Airbus must produce a substantially better aircraft to capture orders.
The scale of Airbus’s strategic error in developing a super-jumbo while its US rival focused on a smaller long-haul plane was illustrated last week, when Boeing revealed it had booked more orders of up to 480 aircraft in the second half of June, while Airbus orders were reduced to 117 planes, mostly for its short-haul workhorse, the A320.
But Airbus is hoping to unveil new orders at Farnborough, including possible orders from Lufthansa, the German airline, for its A380, which sold only 159 aircraft.
When problems were revealed a month ago showing that manufacturing the A380 pushed delivery delays to more than a year, EADS shares fell 26% in a single day. The company subsequently shed Airbus chairman Gustav Humbert and EADS’s French co-chief executive, Noël Forgeard.
Enders last week praised the “Prussian virtues” of Forgeard’s replacement, Louis Gallois, and said EADS and Airbus would focus on reliability – including delivery dates.
Gallois, former head of the French state rail operator SNCF, threw himself into his new job with zest, visiting EADS’s troubled Mérignac site at Bordeaux to unveil the sale of EADS’s aircraft maintenance arm, Sogerma, to French industrial company TAT, saving 500 jobs.
EADS also began to highlight its achievements. Despite the A380 manufacturing problems, Airbus will deliver more than 400 planes this year, a new record, Enders said. Defence sales to the French government are expected to double, and ATR, the Toulouse-based manufacturer of turbo-prop regional aircraft, owned 50/50 with Italy’s Alenia, is expected to double sales this year as airlines switch orders from fuel-thirsty regional jets.
Therefore, I assume the "new management" is going to get their ducks in a row before promising airlines the moon.
"Airbus to fly in the face of critics in display of bravura at Air Show."
ahahahaha I peed myself.. almost. somehow I thought of a stupid kid trying to show the world he's a big boy.. LMAO
If they attend to the marketplace, rather than simply trying to outdo the Americans, they might have half a chance, if they get lucky.
Seems a name change might be in order within a few years.
I recommend: AirTrailways...
Maybe they'lll try an upside down runway flyover to prove something :)
That could end badly.
How many times do I have to say this? Buy Boeing, a tried and true aviation company.
AirBust?
Fully loaded, it's still overweight. It can dazzle people at airshows without being able to meet the airlines' specifications.
The A380 will eventually be a minor success. But they've lost so much time fiddling around with it that to get the A350-A370 back into the game, they are going to have to price it well below the 787.
Will they be able to put the wheels up this time? They do go up dont they?
It might end up like the Rotodyne. It it will be an astounding feat, but it simply might not generate that much revenue.
"AirBust?"
How about Greyhound Exress, our dog get you there faster.
"The A380 will eventually be a minor success."
in America this is called losing!
The Airbus A380, a fly-by-wire airplane with -gasp- wiring problems.
Thanks anyway, mon ami.
.
"Why would any body with a brain want to fly in a plane that's name sounds like a part fell off in a cartoon?"
I guess I don't have a brain (disclaimer) I like the 767.
Right after buying McDonnell-Douglas they updated the MD90/82/80/DC-9 and called it the 717. Shortly thereafter, they killed it.
About their type number progression. If they think that one 7 in a model number is sufficiently lucky, they could go on adding 10 for each new model. So after the (yet-to-be-conceived) 797, they would go to the 807.
Which would warm the cockles of the hearts of us old Elektronikers, just as the 807 tube warmed the insides of many a WWII radio transmitter.
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