Julian Moxon/PARIS Chris Jasper/LONDON
Aerospatiale Matra president Yves Michot has endorsed the British Aerospace view that the restructuring of Airbus Industrie can now best be achieved through bilateral mergers of the consortium's interests. This consigns to the scrap heap two years of negotiations which had sought to transform the consortium into a single corporate entity at a stroke.
Michot agrees that the merger of Germany's DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Spain's CASA means "the process has become modified mechanically", and that "we are all now talking on a bilateral basis". He also insists that the formation of an Airbus company is a prerequisite for launch of the 550-seat A3XX airliner, as government launch aid will not be forthcoming until that happens.
Airbus continues to insist that the A3XX launch is not contingent on industrial consolidation, but admits that its target of offering the aircraft to carriers by the end of this year will be missed, saying instead that a pre-launch decision is planned for the second quarter of next year and, if positive, will be followed by the official launch at the Farnborough air show in July. It claims that its 2004 in-service date "remains absolutely in place".
Newly merged Aerospatiale Matra has meanwhile reported a 40% drop in operating profit to Euro129 million ($134 million) for the first six months of this year, compared with the same period in 1998 on a like-for-like basis, factoring in Matra Hautes Technologies and Dassault Aviation.
The poor performance was largely due to falling defence sales. Dassault turnover was down 17.9% on a comparable basis, while missile sales plunged 38% - the company blaming both figures on "the expected transition between major military contracts". ATR sales fell by nearly one-third, and space sales were down by 11% due to Ariane launch delays.
Airbus sales rose 26.6% to E2.68 billion, however, with helicopter sales up by 14.6%, light aviation sales (Socata) up 12% and maintenance services (Sogerma) up 9.8%.
Total consolidated turnover for the six months was E5.75 billion, up 2.39%, with Aerospatiale Matra taking a net loss of E105 million for the period after the exceptional cost of restructuring currency hedging arrangements.
• Thomson-CSF has announced first-half sales of E2.86 billion, an increase of 14%. The improvement reflects the inclusion of Dassault Electronique and the defence business of Alcatel from June last year. On a like-for-like basis, sales were static, with a 20% improvement in avionics and military sales offset by a fall-off in airborne and naval systems. Operating profit rose by 11%, to E157 million. The French group has announced the purchase of a 42% stake in military and civilian optronics specialist Avimo for $94 million from Alvis of the UK, making it number three in the global optronics market behind Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
Source: Flight International
