Originally Posted by
riff_raff
There are over 100 aircraft that AH will need to fix. EuroCopter would not likely have had the financial resources to survive this problem. But the new owners Airbus does have the financial resources to make the repairs required on the aircraft to return them to service with some new customer. The significant cost of fixing the aircraft is preferable to the financial damage to Airbus Helicopter's reputation by scrapping them.
Also consider that AH intended to keep the EC225 model in production for another decade. And its replacement model, the X6, won't be ready for several years.
EC to AH was only a rebranding exercise, its been the same ownership back through EADS for years. The German bit was bought by DASA in 1989 to join the Aerospatiale bit that was always the French arm of Airbus in 1992. Only difference economically would be if the Airbus FW brand was felt to be affected which I deem unlikely.
Ultimately it'll come down to whether AH want to be in the large helo game long-term. If they do (and national pride / mil-spec will want to come into play) then they'll find a way of unwinding the mess (at least for governmental use) even if it means throwing money at it. Offshore rep is more driven by the staff of the ultimate customers so in that sector the EC225 is dead and will need a clean-sheet replacement (possibly an upscaled 175 as an interim).