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Aviation History
2001
2001 - 0041.PDF
Airbus expects its success to climb to new heights once its reorganisation is completed 1969, just before the founding agreement. So it was the French and Germans who recognised that, despite different individual national objectives, the only way forward for Europe to achieve large-scale success in civil air craft manufacturing would be to work together. "There was no European manufacturer that had ongoing designs or manufacture of an aircraft that could effectively compete world wide with the American products," says former Airbus president Roger Beteille. An experienced French engineer, Airbus managing director from 1975 until he retired in 1985, Beteille is recognised as one of the four "founding fathers" of Airbus. Others are Aerospatiale chairman Henri Ziegler, who took charge of the partnership at the start; strong, sometimes controversial German politician Franz-Josef Strauss; and Felix Kracht, the German aerospace manufacturing genius. The French and Germans decided to pro ceed with each country taking a 50% share holding. But the UK retained involvement in Airbus annual order backlog 1970-2000 Note: Market share data based upon orders for Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Dougfas types Data source: Airclaims CASE database Annual jet airliner deliveries 1974-2002 Note; Data for Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas types Data source: Airclaims CASE database 1,000 FLIGHT 800 600 400 200 ° 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 Forecast the programme through Hawker Siddeley, which signed an agreement in June 1969 to design, develop and manufacture the A300's wing as a private venture. Airbus' formation continued through 1969 and 1970, with die Netherlands joining the pro gramme through Fokker-VFW. As noted, Airbus Industrie was formally created on 18 December 1970 under French law as a GIE (Groupement d'Interet Economique) to mar ket a 2 50-seat widebody twinjet - the A300. FRANCE AND GERMANY UNITED The GIE format provided the perfect legal framework for the consortium to get up and running, sayslVlassey. "The GIE structure is a bit strange - if it wasn't for this French legisla tion, Airbus might never have happened. France said 'we have a legal structure.. .we can do it'. The GIE provided joint liability, fiscal transparency, operational flexibility and no dominant partner." The GIE ensured that Airbus management was allocated to an individual organisation, without interference from government ser vices, although governments were to be called upon to provide development funding for pro grammes in the form of re-imbursable loans. Although the structure of the Concorde joint venture provided the framework for Airbus, there were certain important differences: There was to be no duplication of assembly lines, or marketing effort. "Concorde marketing was split geographically between the French and UK- it was a disaster," says Massey. From the start, the decision was made to adopt the US dollar for all the consortium's accounts and contracts between partners, mak ing all subject to US dollar escalation indices. Another important part of the original mis sion statement was to seek sales success from non-national markets. The ultimate objective was to take a 30% share of the entire jet airliner market. The small Airbus marketing team ini tially operated from an office in Paris on the Avenue de Versailles before later moving to new headquarters alongside the Aerospatiale plant at Blagnac airport near Toulouse. It was decided that partners would all spe cialise in particular areas, with French partner Aerospatiale being responsible for the techni cal and industrial co-ordination and final FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 2 - 8 January 2001 39
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