More Airbus Arrogance

Ok, whose business are we specifically talking about here? I’m not sure if those 10 or so examples have been re-sold by Boeing as of yet, but here is how they can easily alleviate the situation. If no customer will take the aircraft, since their manufacturer won’t support them, Boeing should just break apart the aircraft, now. Take all usable parts like engines, landing gear, etc., and sell them to a leasing company like ILFC or GECAS. Why sell off your competitors whole product? Sell the parts.

As far as the A340 vs. the MD-11 goes, I agree the A340 has been more successful. And to this date, no A340 has blown up off the coast of New York shortly after takeoff from JFK for reasons unknown, so I guess that makes it a better aircraft than the 747, right?

Lastly, I’d like to re-set this whole car analogy. I don’t know how it is in Europe, but this is how it is here. If customer A purchases vehicle A from dealership A, drives it for about 6-10 years then trades in vehicle A to dealership B to purchase a vehicle from dealership B, contrary to what you may think, dealership A isn’t going to give 2 $hits that customer B purchased vehicle A from dealership B. Afterall, customer B is going to be taking vehicle A into dealership A for maintainance, so dealership A is still going to making money off that car. Who cares where is was purchased from?

Here’s the bottom line, you don’t abandon your product, period.

Well I’m proud of Airbus Industrie and its achievements and the crucial part that the UK aerospace industry, along with those of the other member countries, plays within it and if that makes me pathetic then I think that I can live with that.

it’s something like 80-20 in EADS’ favour…

Originally posted by Hand87_5
Airbus is owned by EADS and it’s a private company.

Airbus is owned by EADS and BAE Systems jointly (not equally though, EADS is the majority shareholder but I don’t know the extact %).

Yes, I am bahing Airbus. The reason is that they are doing things for no logical reason – the nail was hit squarely on the head by the person who brought up the issue of national pride. I find that deeply pathetic.

Why the hell you compare a Ford Escort with a Concorde…was a Escort piece of valuable history?? Concorde is! Anyway these are two very diff. things and cannot be compared.

Coming to national pride issue with Concorde, it can play a factor although i personly dont see it playing one.

Just a thought, Did you ever consider the fact that there is a certain national prestige factor built into the Concorde? Maybe France and England don’t want to see the Concorde flying with various “second tier” airlines. Not to say VS is a second tier airline, but perhaps they worry that a Concorde will be shuttling auto parts some day! I know this is highly unlikely!! but if there is another accident the reputation of the Concorde could be besmurched. As well Branson would likely use it to thumb his nose at BA.
Concerning the SIA A-340 deal, I read an interesting artical about it, It seems the 777 is quite superior to the A-340 concerning the initial level-off altitude at heavy gross weights, SIA operates in areas where CB’s exceed 40,000 ft routinely, the 777 can climb higher and faster than a 340 and this was one large factor in the flip-flop as well.

Point taken, but I still think that it’s very childish. They lost a deal, they just need to get over it!

Denying support to these aircraft gives Airbus no benefit at all, just generates a bit of bad feeling.

Remind me, exactly what does Airbus gain from not supporting these aircraft?

and oh, yeah, i forgot to answer greekdude….
VS is a pretty good Airbus customer at the moment, which means that no, they won’t want to piss VS off…. SIA is a relatively good customer (regardless of them doing what some ppl in Airbus consider treason)…. however, as i pointed out in my previous post, the people that are actually placing the aircraft are Boeing…therefore, the Airbus measure is aimed at Boeing, and not at SIA:cool:

by the way, i think this post is simply degenerating into a “let’s flame Airbus” post….anyone else feel that way?

one of the things you’ve got to remember about the SIA/Airbus thing is that SIA is not actually the company that’s putting the A340s on sale…..it’s boeing….and i dont know about you, but if you are going to help your rival make money off of you, then your sense of business is slightly unusual, not to say naive…so if you took your BMW, gave it to a Mercedes dealer, and BMW got wind of the fact that that BM was being sold by Mercedes as a tradeoff, they’d try for all they could to make your Mercedes’ dealer have to stuff those BMs up their nearest hole…as far as they’re concerned, the builder’s “constructive obligation” is to their customers, not to their rivals. you’ve also got to remember that vis a vis the MD11 (which i still think is a pretty good aircraft), the A340 is not only a better airplane with the same range, but the envirnmental impact that an A340 has is far smaller (for which reason, SWISS is trading in all of their MD11s for A340s)…one other thing…..to this day, no A340 has crashed and burned off the coast of nova scotia…
all it is for airbus is making sure that boeing doesn’t get as good a deal out of it as they want…
and the other thing, inter is right: its pointless to keep providing service for an airplane that will not be flying….and how will VS get a hold of concorde if there are no concordes to be had from the companies?

Obviously it is entirely sensible to drop support for retired aircraft types.

But my point was that Concorde would still be an active type, in regular service with VS.

Your anecdote with the Ford Focus is hardly a direct comparison. The dealer was under no obligation to accept the Focus as trade in; just as Airbus are under no obligation to accept Concorde as trade in for new planes. But we aren’t talking about trade-ins, we’re talking about the fulfillment of a constructive obligation.

Mongu…Its interesting that you should bring automobiles into this argument. The other week a friend of mine tried trading in a Ford Focus with a local franchised dealer….The dealer did’nt want to know! As the friend in question negotiated the price right down barely 2 yrs ago the dealership was totally disinterested as basically according to them there was “precious little in it for us”. Now I presume that the dealer is practicing an authorised policy of the motor co. involved?. Anyway I digress, I hardly think that the fact that Airbus inherited the Concorde support programme is “irrelevant”, Who else was going to do it, especially as at the time the support was set up, both Aerospatiale BAe and the two carriers involved were state owned, this is quite central to the case, both carriers covered by the support have voiced total satisfaction with it and have both instructed the support provider that it is no longer required. Now I agree that VS should be covered by the same contract should they actually operate the Concorde, but as far as we know has any official move been made in that direction? As far as RR are concerned ref the Olympus support, I’m sure that once Concorde is grounded, that support programme will be as unecessary as the Airbus one and for the same reason. I still await an answer to my previous question ref: Airbus providing support for a soon to be non-operational (as things stand at present) airliner, with great interest. I’m sorry if some find this irrational, but we are having an objective debate……..are’nt we??

Airbus is owned by EADS and it’s a private company.

Another way to look at it is Air France is a govenment owned airline. I dont know how much of Airbus is owned by the French govenment, but I imagine the French govenment could apply some very strong pressure on airbus on behalf of Air France

Regards

Nikumba

Thank you, my cousin is greekdude1.

Welcome to the forum Bigred.

I totaly agree that airbus is acting like a child on this, did McDonnell Douglas act like a little child when Singapore drop them like a bad habit…NO! This is something called business, and it happens. If they want to turn their back on SIA then maybe other airlines will stop ordering Airbus aircraft if they continue to act in this manner!

Yeah sorry GD, sometimes I think we are the only rational ones around here!

What Forgeard said was, that in the event that any other airline (ie. other than AF or BA) ever operated Concorde, Airbus would not support them.

If I told Ford to refuse to supply parts for my Mustang if ever my evil neighbour manages to acquire it, do you think Ford would say “yeah, sure”???

(I don’t have a Mustang by the way!)

Also, the fact that Airbus inherited Concorde from Aerospatiale/BAC is irrelevant. They assumed that particular liability and it remains a liability regardless of whether the aircraft was an “A” series or a product of an Airbus predecessor company.

Don’t you find it odd that Rolls Royce seem perfectly happy to support the Olympus engines, even though it inherited them from SNECMA and Bristol Siddeley?

So what if SIA got a good deal with Boeing by playing Airbus off? That is what all companies do – play hard ball to get the best deal. Sometimes A wins (Easyjet), sometimes B wins (Ryanair). The losers sometimes issue childish press releases (eg. Boeing losing out the A346 with Iberia recently). But Airbus has taken matters to a new level of childishness.

I stand by my assertion that Airbus have it in for SIA/VS.