Aircraft

His critics were left wondering last week how long EADS co-chief executive Noel Forgeard could remain in his job, after he told a French parliamentary committee he had no intention of resigning before he is fired.

EADS continued to say it is up to the company’s French stakeholders – the government and media group Lagardère – to decide the former Airbus chief executive’s fate following delays to the A380 programme that have sent EADS’s share price spiralling and sparked customer fury.

According to reports, German shareholder DaimlerChrysler accepts that Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert – a German – must lose his job as well as Forgeard. EADS says it is co-operating with an investigation by the French stock exchange into the sale of EADS shares by Forgeard and others in March.