TRANS-ATLANTIC TRADE WAR (Artikel)

[Loran]

Ich weiß, es gibt einen Thread zu dem Thema Subventionen in der Luftfahrt. Dieser Artikel aus dem SPIEGEL jedoch umreißt die Gesamtsituation von Airbus sowie Boeing, incl. dem Führungsstreit innerhalb der EADS.

Was haltet Ihr davon?

 

 

TRANS-ATLANTIC TRADE WAR

 

Boeing Has Airbus on the Ropes

 

By Dinah Deckstein

 

After years of losing market share to its European rival, Boeing is now quickly making up ground. Its new Dreamliner looks to be a hit and Airbus seems to prefer squabbling to strategizing. Delays in manufacturing their super-jumbo A380 could turn the prestige project into the company's biggest-ever flop.

 

 

June 14, 2005 could have been a big day for Gustav Humbert, 55. The affable native of the German state of Lower Saxony had intended to make his first public appearance as the new CEO of Airbus at the upcoming Paris Air Show, the Aerosalon, at Le Bourget Airport near Paris. Moreover, he had also planned to announce major new orders worth billions of euros as well as his visions for the company's future.

 

Surrounded by supporters and aviation buffs from all over the globe, Airbus's top executive would most likely have then strolled over to the nearby Airbus visitor pavilion along the perimeter of the airfield to celebrate the next highlight of the day with a toast of champagne: the unveiling of Airbus's new super-jumbo, the A380.

 

But instead of a day filled with glory and triumph, however, Humbert's day next Tuesday is now likely to resemble a quick sprint through the gauntlet. Despite positive signals in May, Humbert still hasn't been named the first German ever to head Europe's largest aircraft manufacturer, and ongoing squabbles between German and French executives make it unclear when and if the announcement will eventually be made. And instead of chatting excitedly about the technical features of his company's various aircraft models with assembled industry experts, he'll likely be faced with a barrage of tough questions:

 

How is it possible that his appointment has turned into an embarrassing stalemate that's lasted for weeks?

 

How will the subsidy dispute with the US government -- which the two sides formally took before the World Trade Organization early last week -- affect Airbus's planned A350 long-distance jet and new projects in the future?

 

And whose fault is it that the planned delivery of the A380 mega-transporter has been delayed by months?

 

Humbert, who is considered level-headed and thoughtful by colleagues within the company, will probably respond evasively to these kinds of questions. Otherwise he would find himself in the uncomfortable position of assigning the blame to a man who was his boss for years and has been partly responsible for the problems Airbus is now facing: current Airbus CEO Noël Forgeard.

 

In the next few days Forgeard, a Frenchman, is expected to join former DaimlerChrysler executive Thomas Enders in taking the helm at Airbus's parent company, EADS. But even that isn't a slam dunk. The majority shareholders DaimlerChrysler, media conglomerate Lagardére and the French government haven't exactly seen eye-to-eye recently and a last-minute change of plan remains a possibility.

 

In other words, just as the intense power struggle between rivals Airbus and Boeing is coming to a dramatic head, the management of the European aviation group seems more concerned with internal rivalry than with international supremacy.

 

Both companies like to take advantage of the Paris Air Show, one of the most important in the industry, to show off their own strengths and do their best to disparage the competition. This time around, it already seems clear that the long-struggling Americans will have reason to celebrate again. Even worse for the Europeans, Boeing will be rubbing Europe's face in it on its rival's home turf in Old Europe -- and the Europeans have only themselves to blame for the fiasco they are likely to face.

 

Until recently, it seemed as though Airbus had clearly taken the lead over its competitor from faraway Seattle. While the Europeans had consistently been logging new sales successes for years and had even robbed the former market leader of its dominance in the civil aviation sector, the US giant spent those same years in an apparent state of paralysis. And in the past year and a half, a corruption scandal surrounding defense contracts and sex scandals at the executive level led to the firing of about half a dozen senior managers at Boeing, including CEO Phil Condit and his successor Harry Stonecipher, one of the Boeing Group's largest individual shareholders.

 

But Boeing's executives have recently made enormous gains -- and not just as a result of a jump in orders for their aircraft. They have also been able to take advantage of the internal quarrels that have preoccupied their main competitor for months. While Boeing is practically fighting off demand for its new 787, which consumes significantly less jet fuel than earlier models, Airbus's managers are seemingly ripping each other apart in internal power struggles and intrigues -- and increasingly neglecting their company's daily business. The internal trench warfare at Airbus reached a high point last Wednesday when, contrary to expectations, the company's sparring executives were unable to come to an agreement, even after a third round of talks, over the composition of the future management team at Airbus and its parent company, EADS.

 

In the wake of the failed EU referendum, the French, in an effort to bolster the position of fellow Frenchman Forgeard, surprisingly called for the insertion of an additional executive tier between the two companies. Under the French plan, Forgeard would also head the important helicopter division, Eurocopter, in the future, despite the fact that, under the strict German-French distribution of power within the group, this would actually be Enders's job. But the Germans -- once again -- used their veto, and in doing so also blocked the long-overdue appointment of their candidate of choice, Humbert.

 

The Americans, in turn, cleverly took advantage of the power vacuum among the Europeans to deal their main competitor yet another sensitive blow. To the dismay of Airbus and EADS executives, the US government decided last week to take its case to the court of arbitration at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the dispute over illegal subsidies for new aircraft that has been smouldering for months. The European Commission, which had only recently been pushing for a compromise, countered by filing a complaint of its own. Boeing and the US government accuse the Europeans of supporting their aviation companies with extremely favourable loans for new jets, loans that don't even have to be repaid in the event of failure. In return, Airbus and the Commission charge the Americans with massively supporting Boeing through tax breaks and other incentives along with hidden subsidies from the US defence budget, subsidies that don't even have to be reported and that Boeing can collect without providing anything in return.

If the adversaries are unable to come to an agreement in the coming weeks or months, judges from third countries will initially be asked to deal with complex material that would make for a challenging read even for aviation experts. In the worst case, both sides could be ordered to repay billions in illegal subsidies. This in turn would make the development of new aircraft significantly more risky and expensive for both companies.

 

Industry insiders were initially puzzled as to why Boeing would even make such a risky move.

 

But the answer could lie in a major Pentagon contract for some 500 tanker aircraft, for which the two companies are competing. The Americans were at first excluded from the bidding process, because a high-ranking government official, hoping to later land a lucrative job at Boeing, had deliberately given the company preferential treatment during earlier public bidding procedures.

 

In May the United States House of Representatives, responding to pressure from beleaguered Boeing executives, surprisingly decided to give the offending company another chance and, without further ado, enacted legislation to exclude subsidized foreign companies from the bidding process. In the wake of the WTO suit, the Europeans' chances of selling their newly developed A400 M military jet to the US government are rapidly approaching zero.

 

The Airbus executive and their CEO-designate Humbert would be better able to overcome this sharp setback if business were booming elsewhere. But at present, this is far from the case.

 

Whereas Boeing has raked in 266 orders and purchase commitments for its new 787 -- to be constructed entirely of light, synthetic materials -- the European have thus far managed to come up with only ten orders for their competing model, the A350. Now the Airbus executives are hoping, once again, for major orders from wealthy sheiks. Middle Eastern carriers like Qatar and Emirates supposedly plan to place orders for several dozen A350s in Paris.

 

But Airbus management faces even bigger worries with its new flagship, the A380 superjet. Last week the company was forced to confirm, for the first time, that delivery of the mega-transporter to initial customers like Singapore Airlines and Qantas will likely be delayed by up to six months. As a result, Airbus may be liable for penalty payments in the tens of millions of euros.

 

The delay is attributable to defects in individual components, such as the wings, the lateral tail unit and the tail sections, which are supplied by plants in the consortium's member countries, Germany, Spain and Great Britain, and that will require costly refitting at the final assembly site in Toulouse, France. The Airbus plant in the Hamburg suburb of Finkenwerder, for example, supplies the tail units for the A380, complete with all supply and electronics systems, before the aircraft is assembled in France and, in a later phase, outfitted with seats, galleys and toilets, also provided by the Hamburg plant.

 

Some components, already shipped to Toulouse, arrived either completely without or with deficient technical equipment. As a result, managers at the French assembly plant had to stop production, install the missing cables and systems themselves, and then conduct thorough inspections. Similar problems have also been accumulating among other internal suppliers. The result is a several week delay for subsequent construction phases and, ultimately, a long wait before the next test flights can be made.

 

Should customers have to wait too long for final delivery -- a scenario insiders see as likely -- then the prestigious project could quickly turn into the biggest flop in Airbus history. Because development costs are already €1.5 billion over budget, the Europeans will likely be forced to substantially raise their prices for the 250 jets originally planned if they hope to turn a profit. And the company only has 154 orders on its books so far. As long as it remains unclear how quickly the Europeans will be able to overcome their timeline problems, additional orders are not likely to flood in.

 

The confident Airbus CEO Forgeard -- exceedingly effective at shining the spotlight on himself and his pet project in recent years but remiss in making important strategic and business decisions -- is now likely to pay a steep price for his inattentiveness. In recent years, the ambitious Frenchman instructed his engineers to focus their efforts on the company's two showcase models, the A380 and the A400 M. As a result, Airbus now lacks successors for aging models like its short-range and mid-range jets, the A300, A310 and A320. Even the new Airbus A350 is unlikely to be a major seller. Because the Europeans lacked the available personnel for a complete redevelopment and apparently wanted to save money, they simply freshened up their existing model, the A330, to the annoyance of many customers. Moreover, even the new A350 won't come onto the market until two years after the 787's debut.

 

Boeing, for its part, is already in the process of transferring the innovative features of its super-light jet to the 737. The next generation of the ever-popular model is scheduled to be flying by the end of the decade. Unless Airbus manages to likewise spruce up its aging fleet, arch-rival Boeing could once again pull ahead in the coming years and deprive the Europeans of some of their most loyal customers.

 

For these reasons, a position that Humbert may until recently have perceived as the ultimate dream job could soon turn into a nightmare for Airbus's new chief executive. The man who is in fact responsible for many of the company's problems, current CEO Forgeard, will by then have moved up a level -- into senior management at parent company EADS.

 

From there, Forgeard will be supervising his former and new subordinate, Humbert, as stipulated under the group's by-laws.

 

But it could also take a while longer before that happens. Late last week, the French made it known that they will definitely demand more power for Forgeard in his new position.

 

They also indicated that the newly erupted personnel dispute with the Germans could continue -- until well into the Paris Air Show.

[Loran]

Hier noch ein ähnlicher Artikel, diesmal auf deutsch.

 

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