tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10701792.post792417319581526299..comments2023-12-02T00:59:10.380+01:00Comments on England Expects: Airbus, so what happens next?Gawain Towlerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08583658895528269901noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10701792.post-40783234333214008502007-02-17T07:30:00.000+01:002007-02-17T07:30:00.000+01:00It has been my experience that whenever politics c...It has been my experience that whenever politics collides with reality, reality wins. <BR/><BR/>Airbus has made some extremely bad decisions, the worst being to go into the A380 business at all. Having committed to that error, however, they should have known that they were risking their existence on that bet, and at a minumum, ensured that all of the design bureaus were at least using the same CAD program/revision. <BR/><BR/>The A380 looks, right now, like it will be the sort of triumph the Concorde was, something that will be produced for bragging rights, but will never be economically viable. Airbus's assessment of the break-even number is now close to 80% of what they regard as the total market for that type aircraft, a market estimate that most people believe is wildly optimistic. <BR/><BR/>But the second problem was even worse. They delayed challenging Boeing in a market that was not just far more lucrative, but was huge....one where they didn't even necessarily need to get a majority of the orders to prosper. And now they are trapped in lag against the dreamliner, with even the most optimistic dates for the rival A350wide-body being nearly a decade after Boeing gets their aircraft on the market...and considering the capital shortfall Airbus has...because of the penalties they are paying and profits they are forgoing due to the long delayed A380, actually getting the A350 to market will likely be delayed even more than a decade. <BR/><BR/>And if that wasn't bad enough, all of their statements about how the world really wasn't ready for an all composite fuselage which their marketing people were throwing around, back before they resigned themselves to the inevitable redesign of the A350 to an all composite fuselage are going to come right back to haunt them in their marketing.<BR/><BR/>So from a strictly business standpoint, Airbus is in deep deep trouble, even BEFORE you consider the forced inefficiencies of playing multinational politics. <BR/><BR/>Airbus may well not survive...at least not as a viable competitor to Boeing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com