PrintFebruary 1, 2007
2007: A Critical Year for Airbus
If Queen Elizabeth II were to describe the year 2006 for Airbus, she would surely call it an annus horribilis. To recover its momentum in the civil airliner business it will have to overcome many serious challenges in 2007. Customers, unions, governments, and its archrival Boeing all present pitfalls, and must be dealt with artfully for Airbus to regain its footing.
The year that was
The embarrassment of multiple delays in the scheduled delivery of its 380 super-jumbo jet was exacerbated by the serious financial consequences in terms of penalty payments and financial concessions to aggrieved airline customers. Suppliers have gone through the financial wringer, unable to deliver and get paid for components already booked, in-process or even manufactured. Instead of collecting cash upon delivery of A 380s, it is spending extra money in a feverish effort to move the metal.
Airbus' next generation aircraft in the midsize range, the A350, was a critical bungle. Boeing correctly judged that the midsize new technology segment of the market is where the growth lies. Boeing's new generation long range, medium-size, ultra-fuel efficient model B787 Dreamliner, has had the best product introduction in Boeing's history, and is set for delivery in May 2008. The halfway measure A350, really an upgrade of the existing A330, was so badly received that it had to be pulled from the market.
The most critical market segment
Mid-size wide body aircraft are both popular and traditionally more profitable than narrow body craft, like the B737 and A320 series. Airbus has successful entries at this level, but they are aging. Airbus has promised its customers the A350XWB, an all-new craft made mostly out of composites. Airbus boasts a wider fuselage and promises lower costs than its competitor. But the larger the diameter of the fuselage, the trickier to manufacture. Originally Airbus planned to use a compromise structure, but just last week, Airbus announced it was abandoning its plan to use composite panels on an aluminum frame. Are there other halfway measures like the aluminum frame lurking within the XWB's timeline and budget? If so, customers or performance criteria might once again force extra delay and cost.
As a result of the all-composite cabin tube, the challenge of mastering the meanufacturing disciplines has escalated. This will cost time and money. The aircraft's first entry into service has been pushed back to at least 2014. Composites are tricky to manufacture and there are undoubtedly experience curve effects enabling Boeing to lower its costs faster than Airbus, as it will be off to a fast start with high volumes of productrion booked.
In effect, Airbus is conceding to Boeing an exclusive hold on the market for fuel efficient midsize craft for perhaps six years. While Boeing is dominating the most lucrative business segment, lowering costs at a certain rate with each doubling of volume, Airbus will be scrambling to fund the $15 billion development cost of the A350XWB. In 2014 Airbus will be at the top of its experience curve, and actual manufacturing costs will probably exceed what it receives in revenue. As accumulated production volume grows, costs will decline. With a mature product in the 787, Boeing may be in a position to play hardball on price, offer various improvements and derivatives, and will have locked in many potential customers to the family of aircraft. They will be difficult to persuade to jump ship to Airbus and incur excess training and other switchover costs.
On top of its technical and competitive difficulties, Airbus is located in the euro zone, with far too many expenses payable in valuable euros, while delivery prices for its products are denominated in dollars, which have substantially declined in value. Airbus' was able to hedge against currency fluctuations in the forward markets, but those hedges have largely expired, and the company is exposed to severe financial pressure due to its foreign exchange exposure. Euro-based costs are simply too high in much of Airbus' procurement and manufacturing actrivity.
While Boeing yesterday reported its profits doubled in 2006, beating Wall Street expectations, Airbus has acknowledged that it would report an operating loss for 2006, although the extent of the loss is not yet known.
During Airbus' horrible year, Boeing grabbed a decisive lead in new airplane orders, topping Airbus by a margin of 1044 to 780. Airbus did barely manage to beat Boeing in terms of deliveries of aircraft in 2006, in both numbers and total value, but that reflects orders received in previous years, and the margin of the Airbus victory was sharply down. With its order book behind Boeing for the past two years, future deliveries and revenues will fall behind Boeing.
Management turmoil was the final ingredient in the debacle that was 2006 for Airbus. The company hired and then fired a new chief executive, Christian Streiff. The man he replaced is under investigation for possible crimes related to insider trading. During his brief tenure, Streiff outlined the sort of cost saving measures that will be necessary to return Airbus to a profitable basis for operations, measures distinctly unpopular with unions and others who would bear the brunt of downsizing and outsourcing. His lack of diplomatic skill in persuading parties too accept the unpalatable was said to be a reason behind his departure.
Behind the Power 8-ball
It appears that successor to the era of Streiff, Louis Gallois, a French veteran of the state railways and other establishmentarian posts, continues to embrace most of the cost saving measures earlier imagined. They and other measures presumably dreamed up more recently are now known as the "Power 8" plan. The company says it will announce the Power 8 measures on February 20th.
Perhaps Gallois' polish will help sell the plan to all its constituencies, but there is every reason to believe it will be a tough slog. The next few weeks will see the preliminary skirmishes breaking out. Cries of outrage have already been heard:
Perhaps Gallois' polish will help sell the plan to all its constituencies, but there is every reason to believe it will be a tough slog. The next few weeks will see the preliminary skirmishes breaking out. Cries of outrage have already been heard:
The German works council of Airbus said up to 8,000 workers in the country may well lose their jobs as a result of the company's planned savings programme Power 8.
"Fairness" is the slogan of the moment, at least on the part of those who fear the worst.
German Economics Minister Michael Glos said Wednesday he will insist on a fair distribution of the burden resulting from restructuring measures at aircraft maker Airbus.Airbus, which is wholly owned by the commercial aircraft division of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co NV (5730.FR), is widely expected to cut jobs as part of its restructuring program "Power 8.""These are all business decisions that EADS and Airbus have to make, but I will do everything possible to call on French partners or those who lead Airbus that the adjustment measures that have to be taken won't be one-sided to the German locations," Glos said at a press conference on the government's 2007 annual economic outlook report. [....]"Germany must get a share in present and future production that corresponds with its weight (in the company)," Glos said in a statement. "The German government will lobby for the German business location with all its power - also in its role as one of EADS's biggest contractors."
Airbus yesterday began denying the worst reports of job losses in Germany:
A spokesman for EADS NV denied media reports which said around 10,000 Airbus workers may lose their jobs in planned cost cuts, according to Nordwest-Zeitung newspaper's online edition.The spokesman said such reports are 'pure speculation'.
The paper said the EADS spokesman also denied reports that Airbus plans to sell some of its plants.
But A German union has put the job losses in Germany at 8,000.
... Horst Niehus, a works council leader at the company's Hamburg factory, told union members in a memo.``Should all scenarios be realized, it is expected that 5,000 through 8,000 jobs will be lost at Airbus Deutschland and 2,500 through 4,000 at Hamburg,'' Niehus said in the memo dated Jan. 29.
Tomorrow, the German union plans a rally
Airbus Deutschland works council and IG Metall labor union are planning to rally Feb. 2 as a demonstration of unity among all Airbus' German operations.
"We want to point out that we wouldn't accept attacks on an individual plant in the context of cost-cutting measures at Airbus," IG Metall spokesman Daniel Friedrich told Dow Jones Newswires Friday.
Workers at Airbus plants in Hamburg, Bremen and Varel in northern Germany, and Laupheim in the south, are expected to take part in the rallies.
Prospects ahead
At this stage it is impossible to know how effectively the Power 8 Program will be implemented. Unions in Germany and elsewhere may raise political hell, or they may not, aware that painful cuts are the price of viability. State, local and national governments and the EU will be involved, and may be hit up for money. If so, expect a strong reaction from the other side of the Atlantic.
Even if Airbus is able to cut costs, it will need a lot of financial resources to pay for the new program. The A320 narrow body program continues to prosper, with manufacturing being shifted around, including some to China. But narrow body jets are a not as profitable as wide bodies, and face competition from below, out of the commuter airliner industry, including a significant participant (Embarer) from low wage Brazil. As the Embraer 190 grows, it will compete with the lower end of the A320 family. The prospect of high margins in this segment are poorer than in the midsize widebody advanced technology niche, which only has one entrant set in 2008 and another in 2014 at the earliest.
Airbus will play politics any way it can. On the one hand it may tell unions that brutal Anglo-Saxon market forces are at fault in its ruthless drive for efficiency, and urge following the advice of Milton Friedman. But it may be forced to seek funds from national or regional governments in Germany and elsewhere, so Airbus will face pressures to keep certain facilities open, no matter what the opportunities for creative destruction.
Airbus will also be forced to play politics in establishing a facility in Alabama, if it obtains a contract for supply of tankers to the United States Air Force, in a joint project with Northrop. This will be all the more awkward if jobs in the EU countries falter.
The world needs at least two major airliner manufacturers, so Americans have a stake in the continued viability of Airbus. It is doubtful that France and Germany in particular will allow it to fail. But such indulgence may encourage foolish moves. And a well-funded foolish competitor is considered dangerous for other participants in any market.
Boeing may look to be in the far stronger position for now. But history can be fickle when it comes to the fast-changing aviation world. It is worth keeping in mind that for a couple of decades Douglas Aircraft was the mightiest name in airliner production. Like Fokker, Lockheed, and many other storied names, Douglas has vanished from the airliner marketplace. It could happen to any private company.
Thomas Lifson is the editor and publisher of American Thinker.
