Airbus Industrie

TWA Signs Aircraft Deal: Trans World Airlines has signed a contract to buy up to 40 Airbus Industrie twin-engine, wide-body A330 aircraft, in a deal worth up to $4 billion, Airbus said. The signing follows a memorandum of understanding earlier this year. The aircraft will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trents, the new name for the RB211-524L engine. Under terms of the contract, TWA placed firm orders for 20 aircraft and took options on 20 more, Airbus said.

For decades, workers at McStarlite Co. in Harbor City pounded billboard-size sheets of metal into doughnut-shaped parts called lipskins that cover the edges of Boeing Co. jet engines. But about 10 years ago, Boeing switched suppliers after McStarlite refused to cut prices to levels that the aerospace giant wanted. To stay afloat, McStarlite turned to Boeing's archrival, Airbus. "I felt betrayed when Boeing left," said Simon Menzies, general manager at McStarlite. "But then Airbus came along and we've been doing business together ever since."

The problems with JetBlue Flight 292 marked at least the seventh time that the front landing gear of an Airbus jet has locked at a 90-degree angle, forcing pilots to land commercial airliners under emergency conditions, according to federal records. No one has been injured in the incidents, which span about a decade. There are more than 2,500 planes from the Airbus 320 family, which includes the Airbus 318, 319 and 321 models, in operation worldwide.

Boeing Co. launched what may be its biggest political fight in decades Tuesday as it seeks to reverse the awarding of a $40-billion defense contract to a joint U.S.-European entry headed by Northrop Grumman Corp. The aerospace giant said it was "not treated fairly" in the selection process and cited "irregularities" with the way the Air Force evaluated its proposal. The Chicago-based company filed a formal protest challenging the Pentagon's decision to buy 179 aerial refueling tankers from Northrop and European partner Airbus.

Airbus Industrie said that sales surged to a record $17.2 billion in 2000 and that it won orders for 520 planes worth $41.3 billion--another high for the company. However, the European plane maker said it expected orders to decline to between 350 and 400 jets this year as an economic slowdown in the United States takes hold. Unveiling its commercial results for last year, Airbus said it delivered 311 planes in 2000, up from 294 in 1999.

The European consortium said a deal with the nation's second-largest airline would be a major boost for Europe's entry in the fight for the U.S. passenger aircraft market. United has not been a customer of Airbus, despite the latter's inroads into the U.S. market with major orders from Northwest, American and Pan American World airways. United is also known to be talking to Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

Airbus Industrie lost $194 million in 1999 after it sold airplanes for less money than it cost to build them, said Manfred Bischoff, chief executive of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, one of four Airbus partners. Bischoff said at a news conference in Germany that the loss was incurred through the partnership's marketing organization.

Europe's efforts to streamline its aerospace and defense industry suffered a setback Wednesday when partners in Airbus Industrie failed to draft proposals to turn the group into a private company. The four partners were due to report this week to their respective governments about their plans for restructuring the consortium that competes with U.S. aerospace giants Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

Europe's Airbus Industrie said Sunday it was launching a two-month editorial advertising campaign aimed at explaining its position in the U.S.-European aircraft trade war. The company, a consortium of British, French, West German and Spanish aircraft manufacturers, said it was running quarter- or full-page "advertorials" beginning in today's editions of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and 13 other major newspapers and magazines.

A month after popping champagne corks to toast a mega-deal with an American airline, Airbus Industrie, the world's No. 2 builder of civilian airliners, suddenly finds the skies over the United States a little less friendly. The merger deal announced Sunday by two of its U.S. rivals, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, seems certain to create a gigantic, multitalented competitor that the Europe-based Airbus may find tough to go head-to-head with.

In a stunning upset that could reshape the nation's aerospace industry, Northrop Grumman Corp. and European partner Airbus were tapped Friday for a $40-billion Pentagon contract to build 179 aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force. Century City-based Northrop upset rival Boeing Co. in a surprising win that analysts said could alter the companies' fortunes and erode the Pentagon's long-standing policy of buying weapons systems made by U.S. companies.

An Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, became the first commercial jet aircraft to use alternative fuel Friday, marking a milestone on the road to biofuels. The double-decker A380 needed no modification to use the gas-to-liquid, or GTL, fuel, which was designed to be mixed with regular jet fuel so the airplane "does not know the difference," Airbus said.

The competition for the Pentagon's biggest contract in years intensified Monday as European aircraft maker Airbus said it would assemble commercial jets in the U.S. if it won the $40 -billion award to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force. The announcement marks the latest effort by Airbus and its partner Century City-based Northrop Grumman Corp. to upset rival Boeing Co. to build the planes that would be used to refuel fighters and bombers in midair.

Airbus clinched an agreement to sell 160 planes to China on Monday after high-level political intervention rescued Beijing talks that had become stuck on a Chinese offer to buy just 30 jets, French officials said. During a state visit to China by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the sale of 30 planes, one-fifth the number sold by Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, would have been seen as a flop.

The world's biggest jetliner is getting even bigger. Airbus said Thursday it planned to build a 900-seat version of its A380 super-jumbo jet. Emirates, the aircraft's biggest customer, said it would buy the new model. Airbus will begin developing a "stretch" A380 after the standard plane reaches full production in 2010, Chief Operating Officer John Leahy said. Airbus has 191 orders for the 555-seat A380, including 58 from Emirates.

Airbus on Monday forecast record orders this year, putting it on course to beat Boeing Co., after securing more than $50 billion in commitments at the Dubai Air Show. Orders should surpass the 1,111 amassed in 2005, Chief Executive Tom Enders said. Boeing, which had 956 orders through Oct. 6 and does not forecast orders, is within 66 planes of having its third straight record year. The contracts won in Dubai are a boost for Toulouse, France- based Airbus as it struggles to end losses after a $6.

Europe's Airbus Industrie is poised to announce in the next few days the production launch of the 100-seater A-318, its latest jet to take on U.S. rival Boeing Co., a spokesman said Tuesday. "The launch could be made in the next few days," the spokesman said. "The commitments we have received come to just over 100 planes."

United Airlines has ordered $4.4 billion worth of airplanes from Boeing Co. and Europe's Airbus Industrie, with the lion's share going to Boeing, the airline announced Thursday. United ordered 27 wide-body jets--19 jumbo 747-400s, six 757s and two 777s--valued at about $3.5 billion from Boeing and 24 narrow-body Airbus A319s valued at $900 million. The Chicago-based UAL Corp. unit is the first U.S. airline to order Airbus' latest model, United and Airbus said.

Persian Gulf carriers ordered 140 planes for nearly $40 billion from Airbus and Boeing Co. on Sunday, the opening day of the Dubai Air Show, in a boost for the global airline industry and a sign of the Middle Eastern airlines' rapid expansion. With their economies prospering on soaring energy prices, the oil-rich states, in particular the United Arab Emirates, have been plowing money into ambitious airline expansion programs that are a boon for the manufacturers.

Airbus, the world's biggest aircraft maker, got an order from Los Angeles-based International Lease Finance Corp. for 20 A350 wide-body jets, fewer than analysts had expected and smaller than the company's contract for Boeing Co.'s 787. The deal is valued at about $4 billion at list prices. ILFC, the world's largest aircraft purchaser and the biggest customer of France's Airbus, is buying 74 Dreamliners.