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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...

Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:42 AM ET By Jason Neely, European Aerospace & Airlines Correspondent LONDON, July 14 (Reuters) - Airbus will expand its offering of two new mid-sized planes to three in order to catch up with surging rival Boeing Co. , industry sources said on Friday. Worried that its pair of proposed A350 models aimed at competing with the Boeing 787 due in 2008 will do little to slow sales of Boeing's larger 777, France-based Airbus will add a third, larger model. "They are definitely looking at doing three," one industry source said, adding that the new planes...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co. could twist the knife into struggling European rival Airbus next week. The U.S. planemaker is set to dominate Britain's Farnborough air show with a stream of new orders for its 787 Dreamliner and other jets, which are already outselling its main competitor four-to-one. The timing could not be worse for Airbus, whose five-year reign as the world's leading commercial jet builder looks likely to end after slow sales of its delayed A380 superjumbo and indecision over its mid-sized A350. "Boeing's spent the last few Farnborough and Paris airshows getting away from the whole...

The truth that the A350 was a dead duck finally hit home in Toulouse. The design was torn up earlier this year, and work started on an all-new plane, codenamed A370. Now, the board of EADS, which met on Friday, has “suspended” the launch of this aircraft, with a likely development cost of E8bn, twice that anticipated earlier. The decision underscores the scale of the strategic errors made by Airbus. Founded 36 years ago to provide an umbrella beneath which the national aerospace companies of Britain, France, Germany and Spain could achieve economies of scale and compete effectively with...

EXECUTIVES of Europe’s aircraft manufacturer Airbus were engaged this weekend in another crisis. They had hoped to unveil the design of their new A370 aircraft this week on the eve of the Farnborough Air Show. The “launch” of the new plane, which is even more critical to the company’s future than its troubled A380 super-jumbo, had been pencilled in for 14 July until British partner BAE Systems announced it was triggering a full audit of the Toulouse-based European planemaker. On Friday, the launch of the mid-sized jet was suddenly suspended to allow new chairman Christian Streiff to “review” the troubled...