Originally Posted by
STN Ramp Rat
That really is taking the p*ss !
Although IMHO Airbus have been taking the p*ss out of their customers for several years now.
I know they recently increased the price of their engineering support by several thousand, there is also more and more specialist tooling in the manuals that now have to purchased from Airbus, no alternatives are authorised. One example of this is one tool that if locally manufactured from an approved supplier would cost around 1500 - 2000 USD, Airbus charge 18,000 USD.