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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 0005.PDF
DISPLAY ADVERTISEMENT SALES UK and EUROPE Display Advertising Enquiries +44(181)6523315 Display Advertising Fax +44(181)6528981 Group Advertisement Director lanBurrows +44(181)6523319 Sales and Events Co-ordinator Lisa Devlin +44 (181) 652 3315 Advertisement Production Display/Classified Howard Mason +44(181)6523267 UK, NORTHERN and EASTERN EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST and ISRAEL Senior Area Manager Robin Gordon +44 (181) 652 4998 UK, IRELAND, GREECE, IBERIA, BENELUX, AFRICA Area Manager Janice Lowe +44(181)6523316 FRANCE Sales Director France Pierre Mussard Reed Business Information France. 15 bis, rue Ernest Renan, 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux. France. Telephone+33(1)46 294615 Fax +33 (1)40 93 03 37 ITALY Representative Romano Ferrario Gruppo Editoraile Jackson. Via Gorki 69. Cinisello B Milano, Italy. Telephone +39 (2) 6603 4435 Fax +39 (2) 66034367 NORTH AMERICA Vice-president US Sales John Tidy Reed Business Information, 3700 Campus Drive, Suite 203, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Telephone+1(714)7561057 Fax+1 (714)7562514 Sales Director East Coast Robert Hancock Reed Business Information. Suite 305,1321 Duke St, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA. Telephone +1 (703) 836 7444 Fax +1 (703) 836 7446 Sales Director Mid-West & Canada Gene Glendinning Reed Business Information, 411 Valencia Avenue. Suite 16, Barrington IL60010. USA. Telephone+1 (847)304 5588 Fax+1 (847)3049559 Head Office. Reed Business Information, 475 Park Avenue South. 2nd Floor. New York, NY 10016. Telephone+1(212)6798888; Traffic Manager Debbie Kolb Tel+1 (212)5455376 Fax+1 (212)6799455 ASIA, AUSTRALIA Singapore Account Manager Karen Kwan Reed Asian Publishing (Pte) Ltd., No 1 Temasek Avenue. #17-01 Millenia Tower, Singapore 039192. Telephone+65 338 3398: Fax+65 338 3213 CLASSIFIED & RECRUITMENT Classified Advertising Enquiries +44 (181) 652 3811 Classified Advertising Fax +44 (181) 652 4802 Group Advertisement Manager GarethPask +44(181)6524814 Sales Manager Sarah Genest +44 (181) 770 3010 International Sales Executives MoButtivant +44(181)7703032 Simon Lees +44(181)7703011 Louise Meikle +44(181)7703027 LucyMiddelboe +44(181)7703030 Classified USA Gail Tavelman +1 (212) 545 5403 Classified Asia/Pacific Una Rohmat +65 338 3398 COMMENT Publisher Gavin Howe +44(181)6523675 Flightline* The text of Flight International and Airline Business can be found on the following databases: lexis-Nexis. Knight-Ridder DataStar. FT Profile. ESA. lAC/Predicasts. and Reuters. Details from: tel: +44 (181) 302 5101 Published in association with Airline Business by Reed Business Information, Quadrant House. The Quadrant. Sutton, Surrey. SM2 5AS, UK Flight International'is sold subject to the following conditions: namely, that it is not. without the written consent of the publishers first given, lent, re-sold, hired out or in any unauthonsed cover by way of trade; or affixed to. or as part of. any publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever The publishers of Flight International are prepared to accept unsolicited material, but only on the understanding that such material is submitted wholly at the risk of the provider, and that the publishers cannot guarantee the receipt, safekeeping or return of non-commissioned work in any format, including manuscripts, digital data, photographic prints and transparencies Second-class postage paid at Champlain. New York and additional entries Postmaster Send address corrections to: Flight International, c/o IMS. Box 1518. Champlain. NY 12919 © 1997 Reed Business Information ltd. TOO BIG, MAC? THE DANGER FOR THE Europeans and the rest of the world's industry in Boeing's absorption of McDonnell Douglas (MDC) lies in believing that Boeing has trumped riiem for good. Yes, Boeing has — at a stroke — made itself die most powerful aircraft man ufacturer in the world. That is not to say, how ever, that it has estab lished itself as the most powerful aircraft man ufacturer in the world for all time, or that it has acquired some cloak of infallibility. Those who would doubt that need look no further dian die fate of die company which Boeing is swallowing in order to become Number One. From dominating die early post-Second World War civil mar ket (largely as a result of having dominated US military-transport production during that con flict), Douglas lost its way. It was late with its DC-8, losing the race (and die market) for early jediners to Boeing and its 707, and lost its heavy- lifter business to Lockheed. Despite die success of die DC-9 series (up to and including die MD- 90), Douglas never again dominated a market. McDonnell had come from nowhere to promi nence (principally widi die F-4 Phantom), and die success of die F-15 and F/A-18 helped it to absorb die once-proud Douglas. What left McDonnell Douglas vulnerable was die crucial lack of investment in competitive new airliners after die DC-10. What finally brought it to Boeing's heel, however, was die fail ure of die McDonnell side of die business to win widi die US military: no F-22, no Joint Strike Fighter, no long-term military MDC. Not that this made die company a candidate for die knacker's yard: it had a healdiy backlog on die F-18 and T-45, and reasonable orderbooks for the MD-90 and even the MD-11, enjoying a late flowering as a freighter. There was nodiing visi ble beyond diat, however — even had MDC sought die funding diat could bring it back into contention in either of its main markets. Therein lies the lesson for Boeing—and hope for its smaller competitors. Boeing is moving from being predominantly a civil success in recent years to a company which has leading, investment-hungry programmes in civil and "While Boeing is building its strength across several markets, a single-market enterprise like Airbus should be able to take a competitive advantage." military markets. It has projects ranging from die stretched 747 and re-usable space launchers to die JSF competition competing for its devel opment funds and its management expertise. There is little doubt diat Boeing has die confi dence to tackle such issues, and it has a remarkable track re cord over die past diree decades. While it is looking to preserve or build its strength across several markets, however, a focused sin gle-market enterprise like Airbus should be able to take a competi tive advantage. To do diat, however, it will have to move much more rapidly than it has to become a single enterprise. It has al ready disappointed Europe's financiers by failing to unveil its long-promised re structuring plan on time. While it fiddles (or, more precisely, while die partners in Airbus fid dle), opportunities to catch up on Boeing widi its 747X competitor, die A3XX, or to consummate die European advantage in China by adopting die AE-100 project, are slipping by. It has a perfect opportunity now to concen trate on a single competitor in die market—and to use diat threat to concentrate die minds of diose partners which are still reluctant to hand over manufacturing resources and assets to die single Airbus company. The world's non-US defence manufacturers might not find it quite so easy to identify die opportunities which die Boeing/MDC combi nation dirows up for diem. For die last couple of years, die colossus of Lockheed Martin has loomed above all odiers, but die larger European defence manufacturers were in the same ballpark as dieir smaller surviving US com petitors. Now diere are two mega-groups in die USA, which fact will almost certainly drive odier US defence manufacturers to merge to survive. That will leave die Europeans, especially, widi dieir propensity for forming multiple joint ven tures widi each odier instead of merging or tak ing each odier over, less and less able to compete. Unless diey wish to decline into junior partner ships widi, or suppliers widi subcontracting sta tus to, die big US manufacturers, diey (and dieir respective governments) will have to come to accept radical change. • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 1 - 7 January 1997 3
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