P7.
Nobody expects the french to pay for it, just do the decent thing and hand over the Design Authority to somebody who is willing to use it to maintain the aircraft. Branson is no fool, or he would still be peddaling cheap CDs on a market stall somewhere. If he reckons he can make it work then why not give him a chance to. If he fails I will happily accept a big fat told you so.
Xenophobe? No. Francophobe yes, and with good reason IMHO.
Call me cynical but I firmly believe that the reluctance of Airbus is purely because Air France would look prize Chumps, if a British company operated it at a profit WITHOUT massive subsidy from the government. And yes, I am fully aware that before BA was privatised HMG chucked a substantial sum at them particularly the Concorde fleet. We onlyhave to look at agriculture to see the level of protectionism in the french economy: British lambs burnt alive in lorries on the docks at Boulogne, Fines from the EU for not reallowing British beef, fines incidentally which are still not paid, creation of butter mountains and wine lakes... the list is endless.
Please see the paragraph of The Times article above relating to the amount of Concorde engineers to illustrate further my point that there is something niffy about the Airbus Industries response to requests for Type Certification
I wonder if Jongar has any stats on the amount of business that air france are putting Airbus's way?