Airbus Arrives in 21st Century As a True Aero Industry Giant

By any set of standards, this is a remarkable success story.

The creation of Airbus Industrie as a consortium of four European national aircraft corporations-one of them state owned-just 30 years ago was in itself a considerable achievement; now Airbus has blossomed into one of the world's two great commercial manufacturers of airliners, as it by all reckonings matches American rival Boeing in types, technologies, sales and orders.

"We have a totally new organization, with unique centers of competence, and with great benefits in production now under way," says Noel Forgeard, CEO of a fully integrated Airbus boasting 41,600 personnel-and a record of 4,230 aircraft orders booked to date from 177 customers.

The earlier partnership of France's Aerospatiale, DASA of Germany, CASA of Spain and British Aerospace of the UK, Forgeard says, has been invaluable in developing cooperation, in pooling skills and resources, and in refining them.

A stage had been reached where there were almost no overlaps in capacity. But there were complications in shareholder and subcontractor interests, and in decision-making where processes could be protracted and complex.

There were four individual national research and technology strategies, notes COO Gustav Humbert, and each was inclined to do a little more than required on a project, perhaps in hope of gaining a little more of the cake next time round.

Thus there was need for a new corporate organization with full management control of every aspect of the business and with all Airbus-related design, engineering and manufacturing assets-located in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom-under day-to-day control of a single management team.

The move into a unified Airbus commercial enterprise was greatly facilitated last summer when Aerospatiale Matra, DASA and CASA themselves integrated into one mammoth corporation, EADS.

This has enabled EADS to emerge with 80% shareholding in the new Airbus company, and BAE Systems with 20%.

The outcome is that Airbus production will be based on six sites in Germany, five in France of which two are in Toulouse, four in Spain, and two in Britain. The 4,000-employee UK site at Broughton is the largest single Airbus facility.

Because of the clear work-sharing arrangements of the previous set-up, there are no projected site closures or redundancies; yet Airbus does expect more productive use of these facilities to result, with only modest personnel increases needed to cater for the continuing growth for which they are geared.

"There will be economic ups and downs but there is industry confidence of growth in aviation for the next 20 years," says Forgeard.

"With total orders substantially exceeding the number of deliveries, and the backlog of orders last year rising to a higher level than the competition-1,626 aircraft not counting 50 signed commitments for the A380 or announced commitments for aircraft in production-this corresponds to four years production.

"We have the launch of the A318 and entry into service in November 2002," Forgeard says, and "the undoubtedly successful A340-500/600s with firm orders maintaining a strong, 59% share of the market lead against directly competing aircraft.

"We have the A380 coming into service in March 2006, completing our unmatched family of Airbus aircraft of 100 seats and upwards," he adds. "We have everything in place to attain 50% of the world market by 2007."