Aircraft

Audio: Airbus CEO Gallois sees no urgent need for an EADS capital increase

By Victoria Moores

Airbus chief executive Louis Gallois believes that there is no immediate need for an EADS capital increase, despite the French state’s outlining its willingness to participate in any such project.

Speaking this morning on French radio channel RTL, Gallois said: “There is no urgency for a capital increase. It is perfectly clear that EADS’ treasury is currently a positive treasury. But we know that in the future, in the coming years, there will be a need for external funding.”

Gallois also highlighted the need for greater European technological research and development funding to place it on a more even pegging with the USA.

Airbus’s French workers staged a large walkout yesterday in protest against EADS’s Power8 restructuring plan. Responding to the protest, Gallois said: “I heard what the staff had to say yesterday and the unrest that they have expressed. I would like them to also listen to me. The situation that Airbus is going through is extremely serious.

“We must move. We can’t remain in this situation of a company which has extremely inflated structural and administrative costs, a company which is not truly integrated.”