Beginning of the end for Airbus?

[pants on fire...]

Our good friends the Krauts and Frogs appear to be in the final stages of the interminable fight for control of Airbus.

Either party would sooner see the entire enterprise disappear than lose control.

Next step - disassemble the frigging EU!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle1409307.ece

[minibus3]

or definately NOT?

[Volume]

So the Krauts & Frogs should learn from the Pommies how to build up sucessfull aircraft companies ?

[stillalbatross]

They need a bunch of going-nowhere-but-horrifically-expensive-to-the-taxpayer defense department contracts like the one's that get dished out over the pond. That would help them out.

[vapilot2004]

Surely you jest P o F

Airbus has been for some time a self sustaining entity. Any threat of dissolution is pure bravado. German workers and their government have good reason to be highly upset nonetheless considering the job cuts aimed their way.

Had it not been for missteps made by executives of both EADS and Airbus -regarding design software for the grande dame A380, both Airbus and the parent would not be in the profit warning situation they are in now. Add to this the limited types (1) of marketable (and highly profitable) aircraft in the mid-size area and we can easily see a pattern of corporate blunder of no small consequence.

Power8 is not going down too well with German workers because they would be unfairly penalised for management errors in judgment. A 'report' was recently leaked claiming German factory inefficiencies.

What sort of metric are they using to come up with that dubious statistic when compared to French facilities?

It would be a serious injustice to blame German engineers and punish line employees for the now obvious missteps of corporate governance. Should the French push forward with such a farcical idea of reality, Airbus will indeed die.

Reality should find the German government with an upper hand in all of this.
Then again perhaps the EU populus is as taken with ITN/CNN/UPI - itis (BS) as the rest of the kool-aid imbibing 'connected' world.

[pontius's pa]

It is being reported in the business press that a Qatar investment fund, ie the Royal family, is consideeing making a major investmebnt in EADS, possibly to provide some security of supply to Qatar Airways, who are already a major Airbus customer, on top of which they have (4?) A380s on order and an order for 50 A350s pending confirmation.

[WHBM]

There's a well known professional railway commentator who wrote a couple of years ago about the Alstom (French) merger with GEC (British) [both were major players in the manufacture of locomotives, after a while just Alstom was], and then looked at other such cross-channel takeovers/alliances.

And he wrote "History has showed me that, despite initial enthusiasm, anyone who goes into a commercial alliance with the French always, always, gets shafted in the end".

Some might say the EU is just this syndrome on a grand scale.

[hetfield]

@WHBM

Sad but true......

[sarah737]

The end of Airbus, certainly not. The end of the A340 almost certainly yes...

[hetfield]

An excellent comment you can find on the website of german magazine SPIEGEL

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,467253,00.html

[2RR's]

Don't worry, after this little political crisis Airbus will be stronger than ever before.

[arem]

<<And he wrote "History has showed me that, despite initial enthusiasm, anyone who goes into a commercial alliance with the French always, always, gets shafted in the end".>>

same with the yanks, it could be said!!

[Agaricus bisporus]

Our good friends the Krauts and Frogs

Can anyone explain why, on this sometimes idiotically politically correct site, it is acceptable to use offensive racial terms as above? There would be an uproar if anyone made the above post about pakis and wogs, wouldn't there????? Or are some racial insults more politically correct than others?

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by Agaricus bisporus

Are some racial insults more politically correct than others?

Maybe some of us are more tolerant and amused than certain of our thin-skinned, always-looking-for insults bretheren. Having been a Limey, a Pom, a Rosbif, and all the rest over the years, I have no problem with it.

[taffman]

WHMB, well said.

[Lucifer]

Can anyone explain why, on this sometimes idiotically politically correct site, it is acceptable to use offensive racial terms as above? There would be an uproar if anyone made the above post about pakis and wogs, wouldn't there????? Or are some racial insults more politically correct than others?

Sorry, but I can't see how you think that the Germans and French are a different race - they are nationalities. They are all White Caucasian (largely), and the terms are used a general term of banter, just as we are Poms to the Aussies. If one takes offence at being who they are (i.e. eating frogs' legs), then it can only be political correctness gone mad.

"Wog", "Nigger", "Yid" and other similar racial and religious descriptions are however offensive, and designed to show someone of a particular race in a demeaning manner.

Not to mention that Pakistanis call themselves Pakis - it is rather Bangladeshis and Indians who are hugely offended to be confused with a nation with whom they both had bitter partition struggles.

[tilewood]

Meanwhile back at Airbus...............