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An investigation of insider trading at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. has come across a taped call regarding discussions of production delays for the Airbus A380 that took place three months before the setbacks were disclosed and EADS shares tumbled 26 percent. Jean Galli Douani said he met with French financial police at their headquarters May 2 at the request of investigating judge Xaviere Simeoni. Douani, who unsuccessfully tried to buy Airbuses, said he taped a phone call with an Airbus executive about the A380 discussions at the March 2006 meeting. "I told them (the police) that I...

LONDON - Flanked by a large red background and perched on a row of stools together with a set of Boeing executives, Richard Branson hardly looked like the flaxen-haired poster boy of Airbus on Tuesday. The founder of Virgin Group and Virgin Atlantic, irked last year by the delay in the European plane maker's A380, looked to have stuck the knife into his European supplier by ordering 15 of its arch rival Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people )'s 787 Dreamliners. Virgin also took an option for eight 787s and purchase rights for 20 other aircraft, a deal potentially...

As the biggest commercial jet ever made swoops into Chicago for the first time Tuesday, Airbus SAS, the plane's European maker, has yet to find a U.S. airline buyer. Manufacturers typically show off new planes to buyers and members of the media through demonstration flights -- barnstorming tours such as this week's inaugural visit. That the A380 is stopping in the Midwest on its maiden voyage to the U.S. is no coincidence, analysts say. Elk Grove Township-based United Airlines and Minneapolis-based Northwest Airlines Corp. are considered the two likeliest purchasers in an otherwise tough market for the superjumbo jet. Airbus...

More evidence accumulates that Airbus' focus on it's a 380 super jumbo has robbed the company of the ability to produce competitive aircraft in other, much larger and more important market segments. Airwise.com reports that Airbus orders for new aircraft have fallen to a six month low, with no wide body sales at all in the last month. "Airbus plane orders have been increasingly dominated by lower-margin single-aisle jets as it wrestles with development problems in its 200-350 seaters and its delayed superjumbo." Air Canada, which has been a very good customer for Airbus, is replacing its young fleet of...

Like characters in an ancient Greek tragedy, players in the Airbus drama are betraying their fatal flaws, and moving, almost inevitably, toward a dénouement that will bring serious misfortune to all. Despite failure upon failure, no one is willing to suggest openly killing the troubled A 380 program, which seems to destined to drag down not just the still viable parts of the company, but also the workers, localities hosting factories, and even the governments of France and Germany. Airbus wanly puts an official happy face on the setbacks of the past week, and is squandering its credibility - an...

Airbus has delayed dealing with its problems for years. Now it is being brutally restructured with factory sell-offs and massive job cuts. How could a supposedly model company like Airbus end up in such a crisis? snip. . . From the very beginning Airbus was a political construct and was at least partly intended to satisfy national egotism. And so two managers -- usually one German and one French -- were always appointed to the decisive posts in the company, as if the business partners mistrusted each other.

United Parcel Service Inc. said Friday it will cancel an order for 10 Airbus A380 freighter aircraft because it is "no longer confident" that the plane-maker can deliver the planes on schedule. UPS is the last remaining customer for the freighter version of Airbus's A380 plane. FedEx Corp. and International Lease Finance Corp., a unit of American International Group Inc., canceled their orders last year amid repeated delays to the superjumbo's construction schedule. Airbus said Thursday it had frozen work on the A380 freighter program and will use the spare capacity for delayed passenger versions of the plane. Michael Hauger,...

Financially troubled European airplane manufacturer Airbus has stopped work on the freight version of its new A380 superjumbo so it can focus more on the troubled passenger version of the aircraft, a spokesman for its parent company said Thursday. "The work on the freight version of the A380 has just been temporarily cut off ... so that all capacities can be directed at the A380 passenger version," said Michael Hauger, spokesman for the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., in a telephone call from Munich. Last week, United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) postponed taking delivery on the A380 freight version....

Airbus announced its long-awaited restructuring proposals yesterday, and French and German workers responded swiftly by staging a walkout. The company plans to cut 10,000 jobs, outsource three factories and sell or close a further three. Despite a record order book worth €200 billion (£135 billion), the European aircraft manufacturer has been struggling with the weak dollar and the high costs of its inefficient structure. Louis Gallois, the chief executive of Airbus, set out yesterday how he intended to simplify the company’s pan-European operations to free money and engineering talent to build the company’s next aircraft, the €10 billion A350. The...

Airbus, the troubled European aircraft manufacturer, will announce its restructuring plans today amid political posturing and industrial action. Trade unions said yesterday that job losses and factory closures could spark Europe-wide strikes. Workers at one Airbus plant outside Paris spontaneously downed tools and walked out yesterday at the threat that their facility could close. Airbus is hoping to save €2 billion (£1.4 billion) a year through a series of cuts after delays to its A380 superjumbo cost the company billions in lost earnings. The Power 8 restructuring plan is expected to see about 3,500 jobs go in Germany and 4,000...

LONDON -- British Airways PLC said Wednesday it ordered four Boeing 777-200 Extended Range aircraft to bolster its fleet. The aircraft will be delivered in 2009, the airline said in a statement. British Airways said it also took options for four more aircraft for delivery the following year. "It was a close decision between the Boeing 777s and Airbus A330s," said Robert Boyle, British Airways' commercial director. Boeing Co. said it was working with British Airways to finalize the order, but was pleased the carrier had agreed to purchase the twin-aisle, twin-engine jets.

I understand that this week there was a general board meeting of Airbus Industries. At that meeting the executives were presented with a plan to save the troubled European National Champion. These plans, called Power8, should be made public on Tuesday next week. I also understand they won’t be. Airbus needs to save over 1 billion Euro a year. The plan was, I was told, to lay off all contract staff, which would mean thousands of job losses across the EU, in particular in France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Of course if this was a business in the normal...

Los Angeles airport officials said Wednesday that Airbus officials reneged on a promise to bring the new A380 jetliner to Los Angeles International Airport on its first U.S. test flight after the airport spent $9 million to accommodate the huge jet. Los Angeles World Airports officials claim that Airbus executives told them early last year that it would bring the A380 to LAX on its maiden U.S. flight if the airport expedited construction of a $9-million gate to accommodate the jet for an August 2006 flight, the Los Angeles Times reports. That was delayed after the jet experienced a...

If you have funds across the Channel, or a ferme in Acquitaine, be vigilant. Keep a close eye on Europe's press, because you might one day find your money is nailed more immovably to its Continental home than you had thought. Four years ago, a small "cellule" inside the European Commission was ordered to draft a report, instigated by Paris, examining the legal basis under EU treaty law for 1970s-style exchange controls. It concluded that Brussels may lawfully freeze capital flows in and out of the EU, and within it, and that this could be done by a "qualified...

French economic growth is slumping and the problems at Airbus are getting blamed for it. The two year delay in delivery of the A380 super jumbo is reverberating throughout the French and EU economies. Politics, always a factor at the mammoth "social enterprise," continues to intrude, as fear of unemployment and fear of failure motivate politicians to take measures dumping yet more tax money into Airbus. The aerospace business, at the level occupied by Airbus and Boeing, is mind-bogglingly complex, technologically sophisticated, and extremely large in scale. Inevitably, the national interests of great nations are at stake in the...

IRBUS would decide before the end of the month on whether to go ahead with its A350 jetliner, with the launch dependent on the success of a restructure, chief executive Louis Gallois said today. The A350, a long-haul mid-sized plane, has been drawn up by Airbus as a competitor for Boeing's popular 787 Dreamliner and 777 long-haul planes, but its development costs have been estimated at $US10 billion-$US12 billion ($13bn-$16bn). Mr Gallois said the A350 program depended on implementation of a restructuring plan aimed at slashing production costs, cutting jobs and streamlining suppliers to the Toulouse-based group. "We will not...

TOULOUSE, France: Airbus plans to increase spending by 20 percent, to $12 billion, to develop its A350 jet, a long- range plane that would be made mainly of lightweight carbon fiber, two people with direct knowledge of the proposal said Friday. The European plane maker, which is trailing Boeing in new orders this year, will present designs for the A350 XWB to its parent company, European Aeronautic Defense & Space, on Tuesday, according to the people, who declined to be identified before an announcement. The plane is the sixth attempt by Airbus to come up with a rival to Boeing's...

VIRGIN Atlantic, the UK airline owned by Sir Richard Branson, is to defer its order for the new Airbus A380 by four years. In a further blow to the troubled aircraft maker - owned by European group EADS - Virgin, which had ordered six of the new "super-jumbos" for delivery in 2009, now wants to delay their arrival till 2013. There had been speculation that Virgin would ditch the A380 altogether, but the firm now wants the aircraft to prove itself in commercial service for several years before it puts its own into operation. Virgin is instead planning to extend...

LONDON The biggest buyer of the world's largest airliner, Emirates, said Friday that it would send its own audit team to Airbus before entering talks to address the A380 superjumbo's two-year delay and the fact the plane is 5.5 tons overweight. "We have not yet engaged with Airbus as regards not only the delay but the fact it is overweight," the president of Emirates, Tim Clark, said. Clark was in London to open a new lounge at Heathrow Airport designed for the A380, which will now not see one of the planes until the third quarter of 2008. He said...

LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The biggest buyer of the world's biggest airliner, Dubai-based carrier Emirates [EMAIR.UL], said on Friday the Airbus A380 was 5.5 tonnes overweight in addition to two years behind schedule. However, it has not yet started negotiations with the plane maker regarding these issues, Emirates President Tim Clark told reporters while visiting a new lounge at London's Heathrow Airport designed to handle Emirates' A380s. ... The airline's first A380 is now expected to be delivered in August 2008, which will force it to lease other aircraft in the interim. ... "It would be foolish to say...

Airbus plans China assembly plant By Kevin Done in London, Andrew Yeh in Beijing and Peggy Hollinger in Toulouse Published: October 26 2006 09:00 | Last updated: October 26 2006 Airbus signed a framework agreement with the Chinese authorities on Thursday to build its first aircraft assembly plant outside Europe, at Tianjin in eastern China. It also agreed a preliminary deal for its biggest single order from China, for 170 aircraft, which could eventually be worth about $14bn (€11bn) at list prices, before heavy discounts.Excerpt continued for subscribers here

October 16, 2006 -- EVENDALE, OHIO -- Emirates has finalized an agreement to purchase 10 Boeing 747-8 freighters, powered by GEnx engines. The purchase agreement for the 45 GEnx engines is valued at more than $600 million (USD). Delivery is scheduled to begin in 2010. Emirates has also signed an 10-year, $300 million OnPointSM Solutions agreement for the maintenance and overhaul of the GEnx fleet. Emirates and General Electric have established a strong relationship and cooperation. As one of the world's fasting growing international airlines, the company operates CF6-powered Airbus A310s, CFM56-powered A340s, and GE90-powered 777-300ERs with an additional...

Airbus is unlikely to break even on the A380 superjumbo jet for at least another decade, as massive cost over-runs linked to the delay of the twin-deck plane push back the timetable for recovering development costs, company figures released Thursday indicate. . . snip . . . "The A350 is doomed," said Doug McVitie, managing director of Arran Aerospace, a consulting firm in Dinan, France. "If this is the schedule for the A380, I don't see how they are going to be able to finance it."

PARIS, Oct 19, 2006 (AFP) - Delays to the Airbus A380 superjumbo jet program mean that it will now have to sell 420 planes to break even compared with a previous estimate of 270, the parent group EADS said Thursday. The plane has an average catalogue price of EUR 244 million and 159 firm orders have been received so far from 16 airlines. The negative financial impact of the delays, which now stand at almost two years, will lead to a loss of earnings totalling EUR 6.3 billion between now and 2010, the European Aeronautics Defence and Space Company said....

I'm no expert in international trade, but I don't think I need to be to have an opinion about the latest travails of Airbus, which is under heavy political pressure not to cut back on its work force. Airbus has long been accepting money from Germany and France in the form of loans that don't have to be paid back - a move that gives it an incredible economic advantage over its rival, the Boeing Co. Now France and Germany are saying Airbus needs to back off on the layoffs that planemaker's new chief executive insists are needed. That puts...

Unions have threatened to paralyse Airbus operations across Germany if work on the A380 superjumbo in Hamburg is halted, or if any German plants are singled out for heavy sacrifices. Rüdiger Lütjen, the head of the Airbus works council, said staff would resort to "well-timed strikes" in key choke points, for year after year if necessary. advertisement "If there are unbalanced cuts in any one plant, we'll open the floodgates of solidarity across all German plants," he said. The stand comes amid fury over leaks that Germany will bear the brunt of draconian cuts as Airbus tries to slim down...

PARIS -France on Wednesday faced German rejection of threatened job cuts and even closures of its Airbus factories under an ambitious rescue plan for the aircraft maker that has laid out cost-reduction targets but few details. And sources close to the French President Jacques Chirac said the extent and location of any cutbacks now depended on talks by new management at Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. Ratings agency Standard and Poor's meanwhile lowered its corporate credit ratings on EADS, saying it was concerned over the European aerospace group's management and its ability to meet organizational and competitive challenges. Solutions to...

new delhi • European manufacturer Airbus has agreed to pay India’s Kingfisher Airlines more than Rs1bn ($22m) for a delay in delivering five A380 superjumbo aircraft, a report said. The airline owned by the UB group, the world’s third largest spirits producer by volume, ordered the aircraft last year. Airbus on Tuesday announced a one-year delay in the project, its third such announcement. “Airbus has communicated that they are postponing deliveries of the aircraft and the first aircraft will now be delivered only by 2011,” UB group Chairman Vijay Mallya told the Economic Times. He added that the aircraft manufacturer...

The crisis engulfing aerospace and defence group EADS deepened yesterday amid repeated speculation that Airbus's chief executive, Christian Streiff, had resigned. In the face of reports that EADS's co-chief executives Tom Enders and Louis Gallois had agreed that Mr Streiff should leave the company, Airbus was moved to deny the rumours. The apparent infighting at the group came after a profit warning this week in which EADS warned that Airbus earnings would be €4.8bn (£3.2bn) lower than expected after further delays to its flagship A380 555-seater superjumbo. This is more than double the original estimate.

By LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer PARIS - The two chief executives of EADS have agreed to accept the resignation of Airbus CEO Christian Streiff, a person close to the European planemaker said Friday. An Airbus spokeswoman, however, denied that Streiff was leaving the company. EADS co-CEOs Tom Enders and Louis Gallois have agreed that Streiff should leave the company, the person said, several days after Streiff threatened to resign amid a dispute over the transparency of financial and other reporting by Airbus to EADS. The person asked not to be identified because the discussions were confidential. Airbus denied that...

Use of incompatible programs takes the rap, but behind that is a management team cobbled together from formerly separate companies. It sounds too simple to be true. Airbus' A380 megajet is now a full two years behind schedule--and the reason, CEO Christian Streiff admitted on Oct. 3, is that design software used at different Airbus factories wasn't compatible. Early this year, when pre-assembled bundles containing hundreds of miles of cabin wiring were delivered from a German factory to the assembly line in France, workers discovered that the bundles, called harnesses, didn't fit properly into the plane. Assembly slowed to a...

Rolls-Royce has suspended production of its Trent 900 engine for a year in the wake of this week's announcement by Airbus parent company EADS that the A380 "Superjumbo" delivery schedule had been put back for a third time. The Trent 900 is one of two engine models due to be bolted to the A380 - the other being the GE-P&W Engine Alliance GP7200 The implications for the workforce at the Derby plant which produces the Trent 900 are unknown. According to the BBC, Rolls-Royce said "it was too early to say what impact the decision to cut output would have...

The super-jumbo A380 was supposed to become a symbol for Airbus's superiority and Boeing's decline. But it hasn't turned out that way. Instead, the prestige project could turn in to a symbol for the Europeans' aerospace downfall.

DELAYS to the A380 superjumbo will cost Airbus more than $8 billion of earnings by 2010, it emerged last night as Emirates, its biggest customer, began in talks with Boeing over sharing its order. Emirates Airline, which has 43 A380 planes on order, is understood to be furious at the new delays and is considering shifting half of its $17.4 billion order to Boeing’s new 747-8. Other airlines, including Virgin Atlantic, are also understood to be reconsidering their orders. The delivery delays, which have reached nearly two years, mean that the first A380 will not be ready until next October....

PARIS - Lufthansa and Emirates said Tuesday that their orders for A380 superjumbos will be delayed by up to a further year, and Airbus parent EADS was expected to reveal the full extent of production problems holding back its flagship jet program. “We have received information from Airbus that we’re going to receive the first A380 in summer 2009,” said Lufthansa spokeswoman Stefanie Stotz. “That’s one year later than anticipated up to now.” EADS declined to confirm or deny that its board was scheduled to discuss a restructuring plan for Airbus and a new delivery timetable for its troubled A380,...

European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. said troubles with its Airbus unit's A380 would shave an additional €2.8 billion ($3.57 billion) from its operating profit over the next four years and said deliveries of the troubled superjumbo jetliner would be pushed back by another year. Airbus also unveiled a cost-reduction plan that it said would lead to cumulative cash savings of €5 billion by 2010. Also, some of the A380's biggest customers said they are reviewing their options regarding the orders, putting more pressure on EADS to fix the plane's production problems. Airbus said no customers have canceled yet in...

The biggest customer for Airbus' flagship A380 superjumbo says it is reviewing its options after being told of further delays to the plane. Emirates said it has been advised of a further 10-month delay to its order, warning it could change its strategy. The airline said it had been told it would not now get the first of its 43 aircraft until August 2008. "It's a very serious issue," Emirates' president Tim Clarke said. "The company is now reviewing all its options." Germany's national carrier Lufthansa has been told it faces an extra year's wait - with the first of...

As I noted last week, Airbus is considering moving some manufacturing operations out of Europe, to countries where the dollar (not the euro) is is the currency, or linked to the currency. The Wall Street Journal reports that today’s meeting of the board of directors of parent company EADS will consider just such a move. Not exactly a triumph for Europe, the euro, or European workers. But potentially even worse news for the A 380 whale jet comes from a technical committee which includes both European and American regulators. They have handed down a decision which threatens the principal advantage...

EADS, majority owner of Airbus, is planning a radical costcutting at the European planemaker to offset the strong euro, replenish its earnings and restore investor confidence which has been battered by fresh delays to the A380 superjumbo. The plans are being drawn up by Christian Streiff, the new Airbus chief executive, ...... and could see cost cuts of at least €2bn (£1.35bn) a year, including job losses and eventually moving production to plants outside Europe. It comes as Airbus is hit by a further delay of up to six months in deliveries of the A380 planes, putting them two years...

Airbus may delay delivery of its A380 airliner by more than a year amid rising production costs, said Mike Turner, chief executive officer of BAE Systems, owner of 20 percent of the world's biggest planemaker. "I would be surprised if there were not more delays," Turner said at a press conference in London today after BAE announced earnings increased 28 percent. Turner is trying to sell the company's Airbus stake. European Aeronautic, Defense & Space (EADS), which owns the rest of Airbus, said in June that the A380 might be delayed for 12 months, cutting operating profit by $2.5 billion...

PARIS - The Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, took off with a full load of passengers for the first time Monday and the European aircraft maker announced further management changes in the wake of costly delays to the $13 billion super jumbo program. Carrying 474 Airbus employees, the 308-ton jet left from Toulouse, southern France, on the first of four test flights scheduled this week to try out the plane's cabin environment and systems with passengers on board. Airbus says it is on schedule to deliver the first finished A380 to Singapore Airlines Ltd. by the end of...

How the aircraft-building industry has changed. Consider the situation of Airbus Industrie, the European consortium, which as recently as the end of 2005 was beating its American rival Boeing. For five years in a row Airbus had outsold Boeing and it ended 2005 by announcing it had just picked up an order from China for 150 of its airplanes -- including its new flagship superjumbo, the A380. This plane, which got off the ground last fall to much acclaim with a test flight at Airbus's French manufacturing base in Toulouse, was going to be key component of the company's earnings...

Australia’s Qantas Airways is to receive more than A$100 million ($77 million) in damages from Airbus for delays in deliveries of its 12 firm-ordered A380-800s. It has meanwhile confirmed orders for four more Airbus A330 twinjets, two of which will be leased. The Oneworld alliance carrier says in its financial results announcement today that “delays in the delivery of 12 A380 aircraft has resulted in the recognition of A$104.4 million of liquidated damages from Airbus”. A spokesman says in an emailed reply to a query from Flight's 24h premium aviation news and data service Air Transport Intelligence that “the A$104...

Airbus today revealed the cost of developing a rival to Boeing's mid-sized 787 jet soared to $10 billion (£5.5bn) after the struggling European planemaker announced a radical revamp of its A350 project at the Farnborough International Airshow. Following pressure from airline executives who were unenthusiastic over earlier designs, Airbus will scrap a fuselage it has used for decades and will offer three wider-body (XWB) variations of A350 – rather than the two originally planned. The revisions mean the cost of the A350 XWB, designed to take on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, have now almost doubled to $10 billion. The original estimate...

Airbus, the maker of the delayed A380 superjumbo, was plunged into further crisis this weekend as it emerged that the Toulouse-based company has already been approached for compensation by some of its airline customers. Investors in EADS, the Franco-German manufacturer that owns Airbus, and British defence group BAE have already seen the value of their holdings go into freefall because of production problems and a subsequent management shakeup at the airline maker. Shares will take a further tumble as the City factors in details of compensation negotiations taking place on the eve of the Farnborough Air Show. A spokesman for...

How Airbus cabling unwired a European giant Fri Jun 30, 2006 9:48 AM ET By Tim Hepher TOULOUSE, France, June 30 (Reuters) - A trio of technicians crouched in the shell of an Airbus A380 look up and reply "Guten Tag!" to a greeting of "Bonjour!" and go back to their diagrams. They are among dozens of extra specialists flown in from Hamburg to the Airbus assembly line in southwest France to help overcome problems in wiring Europe's superjumbo, the largest commercial aircraft ever built. Working inside one of three disembowelled planes standing at work station 30, where aircraft are...

Airbus has a battle on its hands if it is to complete certification of the A380 in time to deliver the first aircraft to Singapore Airlines (SIA) before the end of the year. A380 join-up production process put on hold Although Airbus says that the “six- to seven-month” delay to A380 deliveries announced last week was an “industrial issue” resulting from “production ramp-up problems” and is not linked to any issues with the flight-test programme, certification has slipped and is not expected until the very end of the year.

Airbus's high-stakes bet on a giant plane is running into serious trouble, creating a major crunch for one of Europe's industrial titans as it battles Boeing Co. for dominance of the passenger-jet market. Airbus announced Tuesday that deliveries of its double-decker A380, designed to be the world's largest passenger jet, would face a further six months of delays because of the unexpected complexity of wiring the aircraft... EADS said the delay would shave $2.5 billion in operating profit between 2007 and 2010. Before yesterday, the A380 had already been at least six months behind. EADS's stock is now down by...

Foul play suspected after cables found severed on Airbus A380 on Toulouse assembly line By Victoria Moores in London Airbus has begun an investigation into a suspected security breach after three cables of a final assembly line Airbus A380 were found severed. The damage was discovered during the day-to-night shift changeover last Thursday (8 June). Although police attended the scene, Airbus has not lodged an official complaint. Airbus says: “Three cables were cut or severed in one section. It is being investigated and our surveillance is being checked out [for weak coverage]. This shows that we have very good checks...

New Rules Could Spell End For Four-Holers Is the FAA close to settling the ETOPS question? The Wall Street Journal says yes... and the ruling could favor twin-engine commercial aircraft like those now sold by Boeing. ETOPS officially stands for "extended twin engine operations." The gist of it is... the distance between emergency airfields for planes operating over oceans... deserts... or the North Pole. In 1984, the interval between possible landing points was 60 minutes for any twin-engined jet aircraft with an engine failure; that was doubled to 120 minutes in 1985. In 1987, it went up to 180...