Aircraft

European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has called off tomorrow’s planned meeting with employee organisations over its restructuring plan, due to a dispute over national workshare splits.

The European manufacturer has cancelled tomorrow's planned meeting with its Works Council  at which it was to detail its Power8 restructuring plan after parent EADS failed to reach agreement yesterday on national workload shares relating to the new Airbus A350XWB programme.

In a brief statement EADS says its board of directors yesterday evening interrupted its work on Power8. “The meeting will be resumed within the next days to find an agreement regarding the cross-national sharing of the industrial workload related to the A350XWB,” it says. “Consequently, the Airbus work council [European Committee Airbus] meeting planned on 20 February has been postponed.”

In announcing the postponement, Airbus chief executive and EADS co-chief executive Louis Gallois stressed the need to “very quickly” find a solution that overcomes national issues.

“I made proposals which I deem balanced, both from an industrial and a technological point of view, and which serve our objective of economic competitiveness,” he says. “I wish that they can lead to the consensus we urgently need. Airbus cannot delay any longer implementing Power8. Quite naturally, employees are eager to know how the future of their company together with their own future is being shaped.”