Years ago, Airbus management decided to support European contractors for the Electric Power Generating Systems (EPGS) on their new aircraft and the new A340-600 was to be the first to have an all-Lucas Electrics (UK) EPGS. This was too much even for the biggest users of Airbus products, including Lufthansa in Europe and Northwest Airlines in the U.S.
The major carriers refused any aircraft with Lucas (aka “The Prince of Darkness”) as the primary EPGS. So, Airbus compromised and was forced to use the UTC Corp. Hamilton-Sundstrand EPGS as primary and Lucas for Auxiliary Power. But, as a final slap at Lucas, Hamilton-Sundstrand did all the aftermarket support for engineering and spare parts for Lucas products! Lucas was a world leader when it came to non-customer support and the airlines weren't about to be stuck with the Lucas albatross.
Entry of the A340-600 into service was a mixed bag. The Hamilton-Sundstrand EPGS performed well, but the Lucas Aux Generators were failing like popcorn due to main rotor bearing failure. When the main bearings failed, the debris fouled the cooling oil and, since the Aux Gen and APU turbine shared the same oil supply, this led to failure of the very expensive APU. Lucas was unable to fix the problem, so H-S had to come up with a working fix, the service bulletins to fix the problem, and field the kits for operators to make the fixes. Once implemented, the bearing failure in the Lucas Aux Gen went away.
I will not fly on an A320 of any kind. The A320 has the reputation of a flight control computer system that has been either the direct or contributing factor in at least three fatal and one nonfatal (that scared both crew and passengers almost to death). One of the fatal incidents was the crash of the A320-111 demonstrator on 26 June 1988. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320_family#Accidents_and_incidents.
For anyone in the engineering field, Airbus chose Java as its platform of choice for its computer systems. Java is not a critical systems platform and has no business on an airplane.