16AW&ST reports that the engine issue was resolved with the help of General Electric’s CF6 replacing the
proposed Rolls-Royce RB207. However, the A300 still had no wings supplier. It looked as though the fractured
European governments were going to lose their big chance to revolutionise the airline industry.
Fortunately, sanity and the spirit of cooperation prevailed. Fifty years later, Airbus is nearing its 20,000th
aircraft order and 12,000th delivery, and it is firmly entrenched in a comfortable, if competitive, duopoly with
Boeing. The company is the leader in the high-volume single-aisle market and , with the current Boeing Max
problems, looks likely to remain so for some time.
In the widebody market, the A330 and A350 have been big sellers. And while the A380 was a financial failure,
Airbus is more than big enough to shrug off the blow. After all, most of its former competitors have disappeared,
and new entrants to the market are a long way from being a real threat.
Each year Airbus invites selected journalists from around the world to Toulouse for a briefing on the
corporation’s R&D capabilities. It is this
massive investment in pioneering new systems
such as fly-by-wire that has enabled Airbus to
become the market leader.
Just some of the many Airbus innovations
include fly-by-wire technology, flight-envelope
protection, new materials and the so-called
forward-facing crew cockpit (FFCC), which
eliminated the flight engineer.
But it took a long time for Airbus to reach
the top. AW&ST reports that airlines such as
Air France initially balked at Airbus products,
and Lufthansa chief Herbert Culmann famously
proclaimed: “If someone wants to force me to
buy this Airbus, I will take my hat and leave tomorrow.” Demand was so weak that production was down to one
aircraft a month when Airbus finally broke into the U.S. market in 1977 by giving struggling Eastern Air Lines
free use of four A300B4s for half a year. Even then, Boeing’s “exclusivity” agreements with American Airlines,
Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines kept Airbus effectively locked out of a large potential market.
It took nearly twenty years before Airbus delivered 100 airliners in a single year and it did not catch Boeing
in market share until the end of the 1990s, three decades after French and German officials signed the “Airbus
pact” at the 1969 Paris Air Show.
Today, Airbus still faces major challenges. Despite structural reforms under recently retired CEO Tom Enders
that reduced government interference and put more focus on the bottom line, critics say the company is still
too bureaucratic. French and British authorities are investigating allegations of bribery and corruption. And its
profitability lags Boeing’s by a sizable measure.
AI R B US
DESPERATELY
NEEDED A
CUS TO M E R
IN THE U.S.
SAA was a later customer for the A300 and it
has gone on to become an all Airbus airline.