EFFORTS BY THE AIRBUS consortium, to woo Alenia away from its proposed airliner alliance with McDonnell Douglas (MDC), have been given a clear rebuff during a hearing by the Italian Senate, into the future of its aerospace industry.
In evidence to the Italian upper house, Alenia's state-owned parent Finmeccanica has confirmed its commitment to talks with MDC, despite appeals from Airbus to explore a European solution.
Angelo Airaghi, strategic planning executive at Finmeccanica, told the hearing on 9 February that Airbus president Jean Pierson had made several overtures to the company. Pierson is also understood to have written to the Senate industry committee.
Finmeccanica's chief concern is to find work to fill Alenia's civil-aero-structures capacity, especially its new plants outside Naples. The group believes that, with the Airbus partners keen to retain work-share, there is little prospect of substantial man-hours being brought to Italy on existing programmes.
Alenia's only major Airbus contract to date is in producing the stretch-fuselage plug for the A321.
MDC provides the bulk of Alenia's subassembly work and has signed it up to provide the fuselage barrel on the MD-95 regional jet, although it failed to win a similar contract on the MD-11.
MDC's weak position in the market will continue to cause anxiety to Alenia's backers. Last week Harry Stonecipher, the US company's chief executive, was forced to take a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, in an effort to counteract rumours that MDC is to stop building MD-11s.
Alenia does not rule out participation in future Airbus programmes and will be a major contributor, to the consortium's Future Large Aircraft (FLA) programme. Italy is also understood to be keen on assembly work on any new regional-aircraft programmes from the ATR and British Aerospace alliance.
Source: Flight International
