[yarita]

And here's today's WSJ article about the redesigned A350 being up in the air due to the A380 problems. If the A350 slips its schedule, Boeing will start eating Airbus's lunch with the Dreamliner.

Why EADS's Growing Pressures
Can Further Hamstring the Firm
By DANIEL MICHAELS
October 5, 2006; Page A2

PARIS -- Already saddled with cost overruns for delays on the A380 superjumbo, Airbus parent EADS now faces additional costs implementing a new restructuring plan and possible penalty payments on another jetliner program, the long-haul A350.

European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., which owns 80% of Airbus, has already slashed its operating-profit forecast by €4.8 billion ($6.11 billion) through 2010 because of a two-year delay in production and delivery of the A380 two-deck plane. Trying to draw a line under Airbus's industrial problems, EADS this week announced a sweeping restructuring plan aimed at improving the European plane maker's operations.

But implementing the plan is likely to increase the financial squeeze EADS faces in the next four years. EADS plans to give details on its eight-point plan, called Power8, early next year. Yet steps to boost long-term efficiency, such as layoffs, factory closures and manufacturing overhauls, usually increase short-term charges, analysts say. Such measures may face resistance from European politicians concerned about job losses and labor unrest.

Airbus also faces other, and unquantified, expenses related to delays on another plane project -- the proposed A350 long-range wide-body plane. Initial plans for the proposed A350, which was marketed to compete against Boeing Co.'s strong-selling 787 "Dreamliner," disappointed many potential customers. By spring, Airbus signed firm contracts for 150 A350s, which was supposed to enter service in 2010. But customer dissatisfaction with the original A350 design prompted Airbus to redesign it. In July, the company announced a revised version of the plane, called the A350 XWB.

At the time, Airbus said EADS would give the green light to production of the plane this month and that it would enter service with airlines in 2012. The delay could trigger penalties on the 150 firm orders, industry analysts say. Now, amid the current turmoil, it is also unclear whether the new A350 schedule will be maintained. An EADS spokesman declined to comment.

Analysts can only estimate what slippage in the A350 schedule might cost EADS. They predict from €300 million in potential A350 contract losses to €500 million.

As the extent of EADS's troubles grew clearer, shareholders in Britain's BAE Systems PLC overwhelmingly approved the sale of its 20% stake in Airbus to EADS for €2.75 billion, as expected.

BAE Chairman Dick Olver told a meeting of BAE shareholders that the board is concerned about the possible cash requirements for the Airbus business in the medium term. EADS acknowledges its financial squeeze. EADS's sudden drain on cash presents "a significant challenge," EADS Finance Chief Hans Peter Ring said. EADS, which has little debt and has kept a positive cash position since its creation in 2000, is set to hold an investor conference Oct. 19 to update its financial outlook.

The Power8 plan has met political resistance. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck called on EADS not to upset the national parity inside Airbus. "The European balance of the company, with regard to its production and the existing jobs, must not be changed to the disadvantage of Germany," he said yesterday.

--Rod Stone in London and Andrea Thomas in Berlin contributed to this article.

[Gaiaakgyyyg]

Meanwhile, the entrepreneurs at the startup Eclipse Aviation received FAA certification on the first Very Light Jet. It costs about $1.5 million apiece. About 2,500 orders already. Within range of most upper middle class folks via fractional ownership.

[chipkluchi]

The Eclipse 500 interior.

[irrelaAnnekly]

How many does it seat?? I presume that's not intended to be a major passenger plane ...

[bribiaLaubysdggf]

Six? Um...

I don't think that'll ever overtake the seats 120+. You'd need 20 of these to make up for one 727, and the problem is, even with so many airports, you only have 3 airports in the chicago area that allow them to land iirc (with Meigs gone) and you can only take off one at a time

[FetMiddle]

The problem with the Airbus is that it's not American. If it was, this would be ready, it would be twice as big in fact. The problem is, that the project is filled with French idiots who rather smell each others toes than actually work. They intentionally sabotage the work if they don't get their favourite bread every other day.

The problem with Airbus is that it's happening in Europe. God didn't bless Europe. Even less did God bless EU, pagan union and alliance.

The problem with Airbus is that if it succeeds, there must be some scam in it. It can't succeed. And even if it does, it'll be so expensive no one can buy it. It's a freak show that reflects quite well the stupidity, inferiority and intelligence of all Europeans, who are not only stupid but also sissie.

The fact is, if it has stars but no stripes, it smells like cheese and armpits, communism AND fascims at the same time. Basically, the recipe for success is missing. They're stupid. Idiots. Pagans.

[Adamanta]

Originally posted by Pekka
The problem with the Airbus is that it's not American. If it was, this would be ready, it would be twice as big in fact. The problem is, that the project is filled with French idiots who rather smell each others toes than actually work. They intentionally sabotage the work if they don't get their favourite bread every other day.

The problem with Airbus is that it's happening in Europe. God didn't bless Europe. Even less did God bless EU, pagan union and alliance.

The problem with Airbus is that if it succeeds, there must be some scam in it. It can't succeed. And even if it does, it'll be so expensive no one can buy it. It's a freak show that reflects quite well the stupidity, inferiority and intelligence of all Europeans, who are not only stupid but also sissie.

The fact is, if it has stars but no stripes, it smells like cheese and armpits, communism AND fascims at the same time. Basically, the recipe for success is missing. They're stupid. Idiots. Pagans. Obviously, this is the unvarnished truth.

[zoneouddy]

DanS, nah.. I mean it's partially true. The real truth is, I didn't add enough French bashing in it

Or EU 'governmentality'.

[Nupbeaupeteew]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Now, if it can take off in a small enough space that you could create a few dozen MORE airports in the chicago area (say, 10 more even) without a major cost, that might make a difference. If it takes less fuel to fly 20 of these than a 727, anyway (which would surprise me, but I guess that's probably the design spec). Eclipse says that it can takeoff from virtually any airport, but I don't know enough to verify that fact. Here's the graph that the company provides.

By way of comparison, the local county airport where I grew up has a 5,000 foot runway and is roughly at sea level. About 100,000 live in the county.

[SinncmxM]

So basically it needs a half mile or more stil for takeoff, call it .5 mi² when you consider extra space and hangars and such. Hrm. That's a bit too far to build that many more airports in an urban setting ... clearing that much space would cost a fortune.

Now, the interesting part starts when you consider that presumably the FAA won't require the same passenger screening that you need for a 727. If you can imagine an air taxi that takes off every ten minutes from newark to NYC, say, and you just have to show up ten minutes early to board the plane? Or from BWI to Dulles [or whatever the near-downtown-DC airport is]?

[Maydayvar]

Sure. But, why would those podunk towns want a 6 passenger plane? Perhaps those would be mildly helpful, but I know that my girlfriend's hometown, a podunk town in Missouri, consists largely of people who never leave their town except to shop in neighboring towns, and they just drive there.

I imagine the market for this is if you could put it in major cities and use it as a faster (both in the air and pre-takeoff) option for business types, avoiding traffic in NYC/DC type situations.

[amelveEnromma]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Sure. But, why would those podunk towns want a 6 passenger plane? The airport only has to be accessible. It need not have sufficient demand in itself.

E.g., you call a plane from a larger regional airport, it arrives at your local airport and takes you where you need to go.

[osteoftex]

Sure, but I don't think that would ever be profitable unless enough urban centers had accessible airports in enough quantity to support the number of planes this would have to run to be profitable (say, a few hundred). I don't think there's enough demand for people going to small towns *anywhere* to justify a service like this.

Now, towns like College Park or such might be better, as you could live there and work in DC. Still though, you'd need a few hundred of these planes just to make any impact at all - even if they each flew 30 people a day [unlikely], 200 planes would fly a whopping 6000 people/day, which is a small, small fraction of air traffic at the moment.

I think if/when an airplane is built which has a

[Grennios]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Now, towns like College Park or such might be better, as you could live there and work in DC. Still though, you'd need a few hundred of these planes just to make any impact at all - even if they each flew 30 people a day [unlikely], 200 planes would fly a whopping 6000 people/day, which is a small, small fraction of air traffic at the moment. I think the population of the US is diffuse enough (think suburbs) to make it a going concern. The Washington area is 90% suburbs, f.e.

[Lenny Hensley]

The key to the Very Light Jet will be companies like NetJets. If they get enough demand, the plane could be quite successful.

[metropropuskruww]

Originally posted by Asher
European Bureaucracy + European Management + European Engineering = lol It is laughable until you get to the part about huge European subsidies.

[DoctorTDent]

How do you knkow all this shiiite , mhomesliulve?

[tinamasak]

Originally posted by Pekka
But it's the truth. Saying EU will lead any project is investors worst nightmare. EU does not understand investing. It likes to invest. In fact EU likes investing so much, that they never ask anything in return. Would you like to see techwear on dogs? We'll invest in a project that aims to put CPU on dogs brains. We don't actually want to see it, but we'll invest in it. We all know it's a stupid idea but we just like to invest. If the project crew just instead uses the money to... sit around and argue which language should be the main language used, well it's kind of fun too. Worthy of that money.

Number one rule is, if nothing is happening, invest more and hire more people to run the show. If there's no open spots, ... invent them! Or would we rather see those people unemployed? It's a win-win. People have jobs and we might even get a dog with CPU attached to its brain.

Of course the Russians already knew how to do it, the Americans didn't but knew it wasn't worth investing into and the Japanese already did it.

But in the name of Le Blonc Chemonux, we will have a dog with chips in his brain, or at least the project. And the plan was cool.. Italians kept the accounting, French was in charge for the customer relations and the interface (available only in French), Germans added human warmness into it and Iceland was in charge for throwing th big party when the project was to be announced succesful. Can't go wrong. You do know that some people on the planet think that you don't need to be the same color,religion and nationality in order to work together on an important project?

However I do admit that local nationalism, burocracy and some nations (I don't like to be allied with the Italians they are kind of incompetent and have never stayed on the same side for more than 5 minutes in a war) are holding us back.

But if only one of a hunred hig-tech things that the EU is financing works it'll be a great benifit to humanity (fusion pover, the gaia program, dogs that can play civ with the AI burnt on their hard disk ).

[doxinwasido]

Boeing was having similiar problems in 2003 when they tried to launch a new large plane which would have traveled just below the speed of sound. The problem is it was expensive and they got few orders for it so they had to cancel the plane at the last minute. What made matters worse is Boeing delayed the 787 in order to design the now cancelled plane so that it's real market leader wasn't on the market as fast as it should have been.

The 787 is basically a bigger, faster, yet more fuel efficent, and cheaper to manufacture (fewer subsystems so there is less time involved in assembly) update of the 767. The 787 has been a huge hit so all Boeing has to do is continue making the 787 and not have any manufacturing delays and they'll do great.

[Attarderb]

It's too early to call the A380. If Airbus have got their predictions about the nature of air travel over the next decade or two right and the demand is for large capacity aircraft between continental hubs it won't/can't fail. If they are wrong and the demand is for smaller aircraft flying direct to the nearest airport to the passengers destination Boeing will clean up with the 787.

The deciding factors will be the price of oil, whether airlines have to pay more taxes per aircraft for their pollution and how fast airports expand (if you can't get any more planes in/out due to limits on flight slots the only way to get more passengers through is bigger planes).