More bad news
from across the pond

With the news out of Paris Monday that Airbus chief executive Christian Streiff resigned after only three months at the helm, it seems the world’s press is piling on as the troubled A380 program pokes along.

Airbus stunned investors recently by doubling the A380's production delay to two years. It is being reported that these holdups could wipe $6.1 billion off EADS profits over four years. In a Reuters article, Streiff pointed fingers at their Hamburg, Germany plant:

Obsolete design software has reportedly been the root of the wiring installation faults that have pushed the A380 behind schedule. Streiff described the Hamburg plant as "the weakest link" in the A380 production process.

Ouch.

As Airbus and Boeing duke it out in the world airliner supremacy battle, Airbus seems to have been put on the defensive by recent sales figures announced by Boeing…further widening the sales gap. Through 2006, numbers being reported by both companies have Boeing winning the orders war 723 – 226. If this were a football game, well guys, we’ve just entered the fourth quarter and Airbus is about a zillion touchdowns behind.

I’m wondering if Airbus may now regret trying to build an airplane roughly the size of Texas. There’s a limit to everything, and in jetliners, bigger apparently doesn’t automatically mean better.