Airbus claims US rival is courting political sympathy in election year as tanker deal stalls
Airbus has hit back at Boeing in the escalating row over subsidies, saying the US manufacturer's accusations are designed to stir anti-Airbus sentiment in the USA and garner sympathy from Washington before key defence contracts are awarded next year.
Speaking at last week's Farnborough International air show, Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard said the real motives behind Boeing's outburst on the need to renegotiate the 12-year-old accord that allows 33% government launch aid for commercial airliners, are "absolutely obvious".
Forgeard says Boeing is trying "to create a climate so that after the US elections, Airbus is surrounded by a negative mood, and then it will be necessary to compensate the poor fellows of Chicago with the award of contracts - for instance, the military tankers".
However, Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Alan Mulally, also speaking at the Farnborough International show, said the 1992 bilateral needs to be re-examined to "remove subsidies that distort the commercial aircraft market" and because it was never intended to be a permanent agreement. "The bilateral...is really clear on the intention to reduce and eliminate subsidies and launch aid in large civil aircraft," Mulally says.
Despite this, he says, the "governments have kept financing Airbus product development and not complying with the intent of the bilateral...Airbus has got 50% of the market so it can work to commercial practices now."
Boeing senior vice-president international relations Tom Pickering told Flight International that "if we could get this support, we'd be rolling out new planes too", adding that the bilateral is "sloppy" and "out of date". Airbus is not "transparent" about whether it pays back the launch funds and has been able to finance high-risk projects because "these are loans that do not have to be paid off", he says.
Forgeard questions whether Boeing is complying with trade agreements, but does not rule out seeking further government loans to finance a response to the 7E7.
MAX KINGSLEY-JONES & MURDO MORRISON / FARNBOROUGH
Source: Flight International
