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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 1040.PDF
' 4» BRITISH AtKWAYS « * ! ill * I illtlHIIIIIHIIIttlllt iMS^*^^' ~x;v-"• •* ; Airbus time for change? With nearly 500 commitments from 20 customers, the Airbus A320 is described by Airbus executive president Heribert Flosdorff as "the most successful airliner ever launched". The Boeing 727 at the same time in its career, four years after launch, had scored 225 and 14 customers. Boeing finally built 1,833. The A320 is becoming for Toulouse an embarras de success. Europe has never before been faced with the production problems of a massive order book. The Caravelle and the One-Eleven lines closed before 300, and Airbus has taken 15 years to deliver 400 aircraft. The A320 build rate is scheduled to be eight per month by 1990, but deliveries to new customers may soon reach out to 1992 or 1993. British Airways chairman Lord King said, on receiving his first A320: "This aircraft is so hard to get we had to buy an airline to obtain one". A second final-assembly line, in Amer ica or Toulouse, is now being urgently considered. A US partner, possibly McDonnell Douglas, would have to share the financial risk but would supply A320s—probably the proposed 180-seat stretch—to the world's biggest airliner market. In addition, or alternatively, American partners could be a second source of components for A320s and other Airbus aircraft, again on a risk-sharing basis. An American connection would moderate the effect on Airbus of the US Dollar's devastating decline. Airbus uses the Dollar as its working currency; it prices its products in dollars and pays its member partners, including Aerospatiale, in dollars for their work. When the Dollar As the A320s of Air France and British Airways inaugurate the world's first fly-by- computer passenger services, the European Airbus consor tium's very success is causing control problems for the part ners. J. M. Ramsden has been to Toulouse to investigate. falls, Aerospatiale, British Aerospace, Casa, and MBB carry the losses, not Airbus. BAe has just made provision in its accounts for £320 million, the majority to cover expected losses on wing work for Airbus. Three years ago £1 was worth little more than $1; today it buys nearly $2. The financial climate is right for pro duction in the United States. Indeed, the whole structure of Airbus Industrie must change as success brings its own problems. When Airbus work was perhaps five per cent of a partner's exposure, there was only mild concern about the allez decision style and the cottage cost-accounting. The main partners, including BAe, have had a veto; but now they want more control than is possible through the legally loose French Groupement d'Interet Economique (GIE), and they want more accounting transparency. So do Whitehall and Bonn, and so does some opinion in Paris. Meeting in Madrid on April 12, Minis- British Airways will soon inaugurate A320 services from Gatwick ters from the four Airbus countries endorsed a report recommending that the GIE be changed into a corporation by 1992. They instructed the four partner companies to prepare detailed plans for implementing the proposals for the next meeting, in Hannover on May 5. Without doubt GIE has been instru mental in the unprecedented success of Europe's civil aerospace industry. But this very success, and its demands for higher and higher investment, and then higher, calls for more disciplined control. The A320 alone, even before costing the stretch now proposed, could represent a $10 billion cashpit until the mid- 1990s—deeper and longer if a second assembly line is established. Solutions will be found, because Airbus has a European momentum which makes it politically supportable. It has shown, more than any other European organisation yet, that Europe works. But so far, while creating excellent aircraft, it has off-loaded the financial burdens on to its member partners and their govern ments. It has also off-loaded most of the industrial headaches on to member companies. It is easier to be successful if you don't have to worry too much about accounts or unions. The workers making A300-600s, A310s, and A320s answer not to Airbus but to the managements and unions of Aerospatiale, BAe, Casa, MBB, and their suppliers. Airbus has made European civil aerospace work, but it cannot claim to have developed as a "hands-on" European industrialist. The other problem, American complaints about European subsidies and unfair trading, is not structurally difficult. 22 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 23 April 1988
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