Something more for the strangely quiet Rubic to ponder.
This from a very well known European source
Boeing Has Airbus on the Ropes (2)
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...9407-2,00.html
But the answer could lie in a major Pentagon contract for some 500 tanker aircraft, for which the two companies are competing. The Americans were at first excluded from the bidding process, because a high-ranking government official, hoping to later land a lucrative job at Boeing, had deliberately given the company preferential treatment during earlier public bidding procedures.
In May the United States House of Representatives, responding to pressure from beleaguered Boeing executives, surprisingly decided to give the offending company another chance and, without further ado, enacted legislation to exclude subsidized foreign companies from the bidding process. In the wake of the WTO suit, the Europeans' chances of selling their newly developed A400 M military jet to the US government are rapidly approaching zero.
The Airbus executive and their CEO-designate Humbert would be better able to overcome this sharp setback if business were booming elsewhere. But at present, this is far from the case.
Whereas Boeing has raked in 266 orders and purchase commitments for its new 787 -- to be constructed entirely of light, synthetic materials -- the European have thus far managed to come up with only ten orders for their competing model, the A350. Now the Airbus executives are hoping, once again, for major orders from wealthy sheiks. Middle Eastern carriers like Qatar and Emirates supposedly plan to place orders for several dozen A350s in Paris.
But Airbus management faces even bigger worries with its new flagship, the A380 superjet. Last week the company was forced to confirm, for the first time, that delivery of the mega-transporter to initial customers like Singapore Airlines and Qantas will likely be delayed by up to six months. As a result, Airbus may be liable for penalty payments in the tens of millions of euros.
The delay is attributable to defects in individual components, such as the wings, the lateral tail unit and the tail sections, which are supplied by plants in the consortium's member countries, Germany, Spain and Great Britain, and that will require costly refitting at the final assembly site in Toulouse, France. The Airbus plant in the Hamburg suburb of Finkenwerder, for example, supplies the tail units for the A380, complete with all supply and electronics systems, before the aircraft is assembled in France and, in a later phase, outfitted with seats, galleys and toilets, also provided by the Hamburg plant.
Some components, already shipped to Toulouse, arrived either completely without or with deficient technical equipment. As a result, managers at the French assembly plant had to stop production, install the missing cables and systems themselves, and then conduct thorough inspections. Similar problems have also been accumulating among other internal suppliers. The result is a several week delay for subsequent construction phases and, ultimately, a long wait before the next test flights can be made.
Should customers have to wait too long for final delivery -- a scenario insiders see as likely -- then the prestigious project could quickly turn into the biggest flop in Airbus history. Because development costs are already €1.5 billion over budget, the Europeans will likely be forced to substantially raise their prices for the 250 jets originally planned if they hope to turn a profit. And the company only has 154 orders on its books so far. As long as it remains unclear how quickly the Europeans will be able to overcome their timeline problems, additional orders are not likely to flood in.
The confident Airbus CEO Forgeard -- exceedingly effective at shining the spotlight on himself and his pet project in recent years but remiss in making important strategic and business decisions -- is now likely to pay a steep price for his inattentiveness. In recent years, the ambitious Frenchman instructed his engineers to focus their efforts on the company's two showcase models, the A380 and the A400 M. As a result, Airbus now lacks successors for aging models like its short-range and mid-range jets, the A300, A310 and A320. Even the new Airbus A350 is unlikely to be a major seller. Because the Europeans lacked the available personnel for a complete redevelopment and apparently wanted to save money, they simply freshened up their existing model, the A330, to the annoyance of many customers. Moreover, even the new A350 won't come onto the market until two years after the 787's debut.
Boeing, for its part, is already in the process of transferring the innovative features of its super-light jet to the 737. The next generation of the ever-popular model is scheduled to be flying by the end of the decade. Unless Airbus manages to likewise spruce up its aging fleet, arch-rival Boeing could once again pull ahead in the coming years and deprive the Europeans of some of their most loyal customers.
For these reasons, a position that Humbert may until recently have perceived as the ultimate dream job could soon turn into a nightmare for Airbus's new chief executive. The man who is in fact responsible for many of the company's problems, current CEO Forgeard, will by then have moved up a level -- into senior management at parent company EADS.
From there, Forgeard will be supervising his former and new subordinate, Humbert, as stipulated under the group's by-laws.
But it could also take a while longer before that happens. Late last week, the French made it known that they will definitely demand more power for Forgeard in his new position.
They also indicated that the newly erupted personnel dispute with the Germans could continue -- until well into the Paris Air Show.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan