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Airbus might be going through a slight slump right now, but as soon as the A380's start deliveries, the general mood of the company will be better.  I believe they will recover in due time, and match Boeing stride for stride.

While I agree that Airbus will rebound once the A380 production lines get moving, I disagree that it will reach previous heights.  The company has damaged itself with bad decisions.

 

--The cost of producing the A380 has been so great that it will require the sale of MORE than 420 before they can turn a profit.  At a full production rate of 48 per year, this will make it nearly a decade before they break even on the project (assuming they can find buyers).  Many buyers have become so skeptical of the A380 after 3 delays that they have turned to the 747-8 (a version of 747 that uses 787's fuel-saving composite technology).  Airbus has lowered it's projection of the number of jumbo jets that will be sold in the near future to about 900.  If Boeing can get half that, it's possible that Airbus may actually lose money on the project.

 

--A redesign on the A350XWB will delay it for several years, virtually ceding the lucrative medium-sized jet market to Boeing for perhaps 5 years.

 

--Job cuts (caused by production delays) have resulted in-fighting and bad blood.  It might even result in a split-up of Airbus into two or more national companies.

 

--A400 is not selling well as they'd hoped.

 

--They A320 family (their best-selling plane) is an old design with no update planned.  Boeing meanwhile is under pressure from customers to hurry production of its next-generation small jet.  If they get it into production, it could cripple Airbus by undercutting their best money maker.

 

Airbus is a four-legged giant standing on one unsteady leg.  And Boeing is getting ready to give that leg a whack.

 

The A-380s and the A-400s are good aircraft that could sell if given half a chance. The problem with AIRBUS lies with its MANAGEMENT^1; not with its shopfloor workforce or its engineering division.

 

^1 EU Politics.

 

Herald

 

I can't argue with you.

 

By most accounts, the A380 & A400 are well made.

By most accounts, Airbus has bad management.

 

Whereas Boeing has good aircraft and good management.

 

So Airbus is building good aircraft, but not the aircraft that people want to buy.

 

For example:

1) 787 vs A380--Both aircraft were designed to make air travel more cost effective.  Boeing used technology to reduce fuel/operating costs, using composite parts that are lighter, but stronger.  Airbus made the aircraft larger, which most airports can't handle.  While designed to hold as many asd 850 passengers, most customer airlines are configuring them to hold fewer than 600.  Since there are only so many passengers flying from point A to B in any one day at any one time, there is greater pressure to fill the seats.  If you have all the seats filled, the A380 is actually more fuel efficient (on a per-passenger basis).  But air travel is volatile.  An airline may have to schudule flights that travel half-full in order to get ones that are all full.  So for example, it's easy to fill the seats at Christmas time, when travel is booming.  Not so easy on Ground-hog's Day.  But you still own the plane & crew.  Are you going to pay your pilot & crew to sit at home and do nothing, & let the $200 million aircraft sit idle just because you have 300 passengers and not 600?  Of course not.  Then you would have 300 angry passengers with cancelled flights.  Bad for business.  That's where the A380 business model falls apart.  It's more practical to add an extra flight during a boom than run a bigger aircraft half empty during a bust.  The A380 uses 81,890 gallons of fuel.  You do the math.  That's like $250,000 of fuel per flight no matter how many passengers you have.  Whereas the 787 uses 33,528 gallons.  That's $100,000 per flight.  Then of course you have the issue of hubs.  The A380 was designed for high volume travel with a hub system.  So you use a A380 to fly from New York to LA, and smaller aircraft to get passengers to regional destinations.  This of course means 2 or 3 transfers for passengers, because most of those passengers are not going to NY/LA.  Whereas the 787 might fly one flight to LA and one to San Francisco, making those passengers happier because they don't have to transfer at all. In short, the 787 is less of a gamble for airlines and will result in happier passengers.

 

2) A400 vs C-130--For the A400 it's a different problem: inertia.  Basically, the C-130 has been around 40 years and anyone who might buy the A400 probably already has the C-130 (more than 2,000 produced).  You don't throw away a perfectly good aircraft just because you buy a new one.  So now if I own both aircraft, I've just doubled my logistical burden.  I now have to train crews for two different aircraft, keep parts for two different aircraft, etc...Unless I'm planning to get rid of all my C-130s, or didn't own any, it doesn't make sense.  So ouside of the home market (Germany/France/Spain/UK), Airbus has managed to sell a mere 33.  It's probably a more viable aircraft than the A380, but will have a tough time getting started.

 

3) A350 vs 787--This was basically an old design with a new name.  The customers weren't fooled and demanded something more modern.  So Airbus has wasted time, money, and customer good will coming up with the A350XWB instead.  This was just plain bad management.