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Aviation History
2004
2004-09 - 0596.PDF
Germany: space EADS Space Germany, with German aerospace centre is building DLR funding construction and launch the next year, and Astrium contributing to European implementation by developing and mar- Space keting geo-information tools. Agency's During the recent downturn, EADS Automated Space underwent major restructuring, not Transfer only because of the market difficulties, but Vehicle, also to deal with the legacy of its founding expected to in 2000 through the merger of many fly in 2005 European companies. "We started with a kind of club of national entities and now we have one company with streamlined functions and the same turnover with 30% less staff," says chief executive Francois Auque. In the downsizing required to cope with the difficult commercial market, no company suffered more than another, he says. "I would say it's about the same everywhere with an exception, which is Spain, where the staff reduction was almost zero." The job cuts have been slightly less in the UK, he says, due to the ramping up of the Skynet 5 military com munications satellite programme. Removing duplication "This was really a very costly process, but at the end of the year we will deliver our commitment to go back to black," Auque says. The restructuring also saw movement in the work each site did in an effort to remove the duplication Auque and his team saw among the many inherited space firms. "This is a real challenge with a very substantial cost, but when we have finalised it at the end of this year, EADS Space will be a very efficient economic organisation," he says. Because commercial satellite work is at the centre of its operations, EADS Astrium has seen an almost straight swap of propul sion and communications technologies between Germany and the UK. "There were antennas in both Germany and England," Auque says. "Tomorrow the antennas will only be in England. Satellite propulsion was in England and Germany, tomorrow it will only be in Germany." Whatever the outcome of the new Astrium structure, Auque is confident it will contribute to his firm's profitability. "Something that is less well known is that today EADS Astrium has the strongest backlog in terms of [orders for] commercial telecommunication satellites," he says. In Germany, EADS Space's companies have still to compete against OHB-System and others for shrinking government funding. Kayser-Threde's Wulf is ready to take on the European giant, saying: "On the national level [we] can compete for prime contractor work and do quite well." Neither Kayser-Threde, OHB-System, or any of the other German firms except EADS operate in all areas of the space industry. "They enter segments of the market that are very limited and are complementary," says Auque. "Maybe there is 10% or 20% of competition, but 80% is complementary. So there is a lot of subcontracting because they cannot do what we can do." As far as Auque is concerned the international market for commercial geo-stationary telecommunica tion satellites is closed to all but a few com panies because of the technological and financial barriers. All-German But in the domestic market, Wulf believes EADS Space's European identity has given Kayser-Threde an advantage as it is an all- German firm. "Our order intake has been above expectations. One reason is that we have benefited from the internal [restructur ing] of EADS, which is no longer seen as a German company by the German ministry." With talk of a European Union space programme it remains to be seen if space will remain in any way a national endeav our. One outcome of shrinking national budgets could be a new European space budget, forged from the coffers of a newly expanded 25 member-state union. But for now the German space industry is dependent on government cash, subject to the vagaries of politics, while the com mercial sector still fails to take off and become the main source of revenue. • www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 4-10 MAY 2004 61
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