just wait until the A350XWB gets close to launch...
They will have over 7 years to reverse engineer the entire 787. If they can't produce something better given that advantage, they are toast.
Then they are toast. I don't think they can do it.
The reason Boeing wandered in the wilderness all the way up to the 707 is the airlines had a perception of them as the one manufacturer that didn't shoot straight with them. They figured Boeing would pretend to listen to their concerns and then foist a half-hearted re-engineering of their military aircraft on them. Airbus is going to have a very serious credibility problem if they don't get this plane "off the ground," and not being Boeing is not going to be enough to sell their airplanes. This will be especially true in categories where there are several players, because an airline can write off Airbus and still have two or three options to choose from.
Trust issues are a big, big problem, much bigger than engineering, and Airbus bought themselves a big one by trying to screw UPS.