History of Airbus
In 2000, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) NV was established through the merger of Aerospatiale-Matra of France and DASA from Germany, and that subsequently bought Construcciones Aeronauticas from Spain.
In addition to other subsidiaries pertaining to security and space activities, EADS owned 100% of the pre-existing Eurocopter SA, established in 1992, as well as 80% of Airbus Industrie GIE.
Airbus Industrie began as a consortium of European aviation firms formed to compete with American companies such as Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed.
For example, in 1959 Hawker Siddeley had advertised an "Airbus" version of the Armstrong Whitworth AW.660 Argosy,[8] which would "be able to lift as many as 126 passengers on ultra short routes at a direct operating cost of 2d.
The French government threatened to withdraw from the project due to its concern over funding all of the Airbus A300, Concorde and the Dassault Mercure concurrently, but was persuaded by Ziegler to maintain its support.
[10] With its own concerns at the A300B proposal in December 1968, and fearing it would not recoup its investment due to lack of sales, the British government withdrew on 10 April 1969.
This also confirmed Sud Aviation as the "lead company", that France and the UK would each have a 37.5% work share with West Germany taking 25%, and that Rolls-Royce would manufacture the engines.
[21] Initially the success of the consortium was poor,[22] but orders for the aircraft picked up,[23][24] due in part to the marketing skills used by Airbus CEO Bernard Lathière, targeting airlines in America and Asia.
[38] In January 2001 Airbus Industrie was transformed from an inherently inefficient consortium structure to a formal joint stock company, with legal and tax procedures being finalised on 11 July.
[45] Due to the slow pace of informal negotiations, BAE exercised its put option, which saw investment bank Rothschild appointed to give an independent valuation.
[48] By August 2013 the VTB stake had been sold to Vnesheconombank (aka VEB.RF), and the Russian share had been reduced to 2.88% because they needed to stanch a financial wound elsewhere in their domestic aircraft industry.
The companies collaborated on development of the Airbus range, but guarded the financial details of their own production activities and sought to maximise the transfer prices of their sub-assemblies.
[40] It was becoming clear that Airbus was no longer a temporary collaboration to produce a single plane as per its original mission statement; it had become a long-term brand for the development of further aircraft.
[40][59] In mid-1988 a group of Airbus engineers led by Jean Roeder began working in secret on the development of an ultra-high-capacity airliner (UHCA), both to complete its own range of products and to break the dominance that Boeing had enjoyed in this market segment since the early 1970s with its 747.
Due to lengthy negotiations and disagreements over price, BAE exercised its put option, which saw investment bank Rothschild appointed to give an independent valuation.
[79] A French shareholder group filed a class action lawsuit against EADS for failing to inform investors of the financial implications of the A380 delays while airlines awaiting deliveries demanded compensation.
[84] On 9 October 2006 Christian Streiff, Humbert's successor, resigned due to differences with parent company EADS over the amount of independence he would be granted in implementing his reorganisation plan for Airbus.
[88] At the 2011 Paris Air Show, Airbus received total orders valued at about $72.2 billion for 730 aircraft, a new record in the civil aviation industry.
[89] In February 2008, the United States Air Force awarded a $35 billion contract for KC-45 aerial refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman, with EADS as a major subcontractor.
The contract, initially valued at $35 billion, would have seen Northrop Grumman and EADS would build a fleet of 179 planes based on the existing Airbus A330 to provide in-air refueling to military aircraft.
The competition was restarted and in March 2010, Northrop Grumman announced it was withdrawing its bid, with its CEO stating that the revised tender requirement favored Boeing.
[107] Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders stated that "The only way to do it for big companies is really to create spaces outside of the main business where we allow and where we incentivize experimentation ... That is what we have started to do but there is no manual ...
[111] However, In early July 2016, US House of Representatives passed amendments that would block US Department of Treasury funds from granting export licences or reexport of passenger commercial aircraft.
[126] Airbus will designate a new CEO to succeed Enders by the end of 2018, which will be submitted to shareholders at the spring 2019 annual meeting, with planemaking boss and former Eurocopter head Guillaume Faury as the main internal candidate.
[128] On 15 May, in its EU appeal ruling, the WTO concluded that the A350 and A380 received improper subsidies through repayable launch aids or low interest rates which could have been avoided, and Airbus agreed to correct those violations.
[129] On 13 September, Eric Schulz left the Chief Commercial Officer role for personal reasons and was replaced by Christian Scherer, CEO of ATR since October 2016.
[132] On 21 November, Airbus appointed Michael Schöllhorn, COO for BSH Home Appliances GmbH, to succeed Tom Williams as Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Airbus Commercial Aircraft from 1 February 2019,[133] and Dominik Asam, CFO of Infineon Technologies, to succeed Harald Wilhelm as Chief Financial Officer from 10 April 2019.
[134] On 20 December 2018, Le Monde newspaper reported the U.S. Department of Justice had opened a corruption investigation, which could result in fines of up to 4-5 billion Euros.
[135] In February 2019, Airbus launched The OneAtlas Platform, a geospatial tool that applies artificial intelligence to satellite images and extracts insights for customers.[136][importance?]
The A380 is anticipated to further reduce sales of the Boeing 747, gaining Airbus a share of the market in very large aircraft, though frequent delays in the A380 programme have caused several customers to consider the refreshed 747–8.
