Paris in June

Published 9:00 pm Monday, June 27, 2005

BizWeek’s Stan Holmes does a post-mortem on Paris and the performance of Boeing and Airbus at the biennial air show.

Key Quote: “It could be argued that Boeing lost its way for several years. The Seattle airplane division experienced a factory meltdown of its own making in 1997-98, a slip that cost it $2.5 billion and immeasurable amounts of credibility. Led by CEO Alan Mulally, Boeing’s commercial unit dug itself out of that gaping hole, while cutting costs and improving production. And when Boeing’s elite designers finally got the green light for the first airliner of the 21st century, they produced a gem — the 787 Dreamliner — just as they have time and again since the beginning of the jet era.”

Here’s the link:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2005/tc20050628_3589_tc120.htm

Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune notes that while Airbus was wracking up orders for its A350 (some of them a little thin — just what does it mean that Qatar Airways wants “up to 60” of them?), it wasn’t announcing many orders for it’s flagship A380.

Key Quote: “A breakthrough material Airbus is using on the (A380), called Glare, a lightweight sandwich of aluminum and fiberglass, is not being used on the A350. This indicates to some observers that Glare has fallen short of Airbus’ initially high expectations.”

And this one: “On the sales floor, the A380 was the prom queen that couldn’t get a date.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0506250285jun26,1,2291167.story?coll=chi-business-hed