read this, not good news!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1505646,00.html

Was it not Churchill who said to de Gaull: “If we ever have to chose between the Atlantic and the Continent, we will always chose the Atlantic” ? 😀

but then again even factoring into that..would u my friend sekant have sunk in 13 billion dollars over the a380 given the chance now? ? ?

Considering that Airbus seems to be losing the edge it had gained over Boeing, the short term answer is probably no. But I would not be too harsh on Airbus management for several reasons (at least at this stage):
a) Boeing was bound to rebound (sounds weird), and at last make one right move (i.e. start making new planes again, rather than simply trying to make money as they seem to have done in the 1990s). No one ever doubted that Boeing is a great company and that they would be back!
b) It would have been fairly difficult for Airbus to launch the A350 instead of the A380. This would have meant to willingly undermine the A330.
c) As mentionned above, to level the playing field, Airbus had to have a product to challenge the 747. This may cost them in the short term but if they remain as innovative in the future as they have been in past 30 years, they should still be doing ok.

If Airbus knew that they would record a fairly impressive number of orders for the A350 (ie Qatar and Emirates at least), how come the board did not give a green light for the programme to go ahead? What could hold them back??

Call me stupid, but I believed that the Airbus counterpart of the 777 was both the 340 and 330. And not only the 340!!?! At least, this is what Airbus has been arguing all along!

both companies use a variety of statistics to make their product seem to be the best -(the saying lies, damned lies and statistics comes to mind) but as a pax I would, where possible, chose A340/330 for long haul because of the 2-4-2 seating – it is no fun being either the middle of a row of 3 (or 5 on some carriers) or having to ask 2 people to move if sitting by a window.

Yep, same for me – if I travel coach, and if the price is the same, I will opt for the A330/340 for simple sitting reasons (and avoid as far as possible the 747 and 777). That makes even more sense if you travel with a companion (can have you two seats on the side and no one bothers you).

Over the past 18 months:

A319 Easyjet
A321 Swiss
A330 Swiss
A340 Swiss
MD87 (or 88) Iberia
A340 Iberia
B737 Gol
B747 Air France
B747 Corsair
Bombardier Q Austrian
MD82 (or 83) Alitalia
DASH-8 Liat

Mpacha,

I would tend to agree with your viewpoint – SA had neither the capacity nor an interest in occupying foreign countries. Its main objective was to protect the apartheid regime/system in SA proper.

However, it seems to me that you downplay some of the foreign “adventures” that SA undertook. As far as I can recall (but I do admit that I may be mistaken because I was fairly young in the 1980s), SA got involved not only in Angola but also in Mozambique (i.e. both direct and indirect involvement).

The aim of those operations would seem to me respond to a) the need to destabilise countries of the region (ie to avoid facing a strong common front of post-colonial anti-apartheid countries in the region) and b) to be seen contributing to the american anti-communist effort in order to gain western support and assistance!!