October 24, 2006
WITHOUT:
Airbus to ask board to approve A350 XWB in November, but delays supplier strategy briefing (Guy Norris, 10/24/06, Flight International)
Flight International understands that major systems and engine suppliers that were originally intending to travel to Toulouse for Airbus's regular six-monthly future products strategic planning meeting around mid-November have been told to cancel. "They have no strategic plan at the moment," says one key supplier, which does not want to be identified. [...]In an interview last week with French daily newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, Gallois said that the Airbus Power 8 cost-cutting plan created by his predecessor Christian Streiff would be needed "even without the A380 problems...simply to tackle the weakness of the dollar". He added that the weak dollar has resulted in Airbus losing "20% of our competitiveness to Boeing since the launch of the A380 programme in 2000", and that the "very future of Airbus is in the balance" without the cost-cutting effort.
Get used to that notion: "...even without the A380..." Posted by Orrin Judd at October 24, 2006 3:29 PM
This "Thar, She Blows," business has major-league rip-off written all over it. A lot of people are getting a lot of money out of this--it's like Whitewater, only bigger. A business fiasco, bankruptcies, and politicians' fortunes are made.
Posted by: Lou Gots at October 24, 2006 10:29 PMThe real money is in the runway expansion in totalitarian nations for planes that won't ever land there.
Posted by: oj at October 24, 2006 10:38 PMThe real looting may be done by the Russians, as EADS begins to crater. Or by the French, who will stiff all their "partners" as the smoke rises.
And this is one area where the Euros may come to DC, looking for money. A Democratic President would give it to them, no?
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 25, 2006 12:12 AM