To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Airbus's press conference at last week's Farnborough air show may not have been the beginning of the end of the airframer's troubles. But it may have been the end of the beginning of a five- or six-year campaign to rebuild its reputation in the market.
New chief executive Christian Streiff had been in the job just two weeks when he made his first appearance in front of the world's aviation media with four senior lieutenants. But he set the right tone. He was open and apologetic about past mistakes; firm about Toulouse's promise to fix the A380 on time; and bullish about prospects for the all-new A350.
Streiff, who had no aerospace experience when he took the job, has a frantic few months and years ahead of him. A native of a wine-growing region next to Germany, he is unlikely to have time for long French lunches and vacations, undertaking to work 16h days through summer to get Airbus back on course.
He did not guarantee instant solutions. Instead, he is going to spend 100 days making sure the A380 meets its revised delivery schedule and fine-tuning the business case for the A350 XWB before deciding to recommend a formal programme launch to shareholders.
His to-do list in the longer term looks even more daunting. The strong euro means more pain on costs is inevitable, as Airbus struggles to compete with Boeing in a dollar marketplace. He must also establish a solid working relationship with his boss, EADS co-chief executive Tom Enders. During the Nöel Forgeard era, Airbus was semi-detached from its main shareholder.
Streiff has also vowed to address problems in Airbus's "culture" - an issue that the four-nation airframer has always been in denial about. This includes streamlining industrial processes and building bridges not only between the national entities and "centres of excellence", but among smaller "silo" units within factories, where tangled reporting lines mean that problems are not communicated.
So does Farnborough signal the start of an Airbus bounce back? Everything depends on nothing else going wrong and Boeing having its turn of bad luck over the next five years.
As far as the A380 is concerned, any more slips would be catastrophic. Airbus must also start building some order momentum for the ultra-large airliner again .
As for the A350 XWB, the jury is out. Existing customers have welcomed the fact that a product decision has been taken. On first sight, the A350 looks and sounds sufficiently different to the Boeing 787 to allow Toulouse to technologically leapfrog its rival in the four years between the two models entering service. But there is a lot of scepticism as to whether credibility-battered Airbus can deliver on time and at a price that airlines will pay.
At the press conference, Airbus's sales chief John Leahy admitted that "one or two" existing A350 customers might be lost in the interim. If those airlines are Bangkok Airways or Yemenia, no one is going to panic. If they are Qatar Airways or ILFC - whose founder, Steve Udvar-Hazy, is the only customer Streiff has met - the damage to the programme's prospects could be irreparable.
There is an air of semi-dignified smugness around Boeing as all this goes on. The US company has continued to clock up orders for its 787 as its only real rival sits on the drawing board.
But the tides of fortune can turn quickly in aerospace. Three years ago, Boeing had just axed the Sonic Cruiser, seen its chief executive resign amid scandal, and been overtaken by Airbus in deliveries for the first time.
The 787 has been arguably the most successful airliner programme ever in terms of advance orders, but the Dreamliner's success could create its own nightmare for Boeing. There is a huge queue of airlines anxious to get their hands on the aircraft. But the manufacturer has also assembled an ambitious, international, risk-shared infrastructure to build the 787. If that stalls, delaying either certification or deliveries further down the line, Boeing is going to be faced with its own disgruntled customers.
The 787's popularity also puts pressure on Boeing to deliver a similarly impressive replacement for the 737 - and soon. Boeing has built expectations and airlines are expecting it to deliver. If it fails in any way, and Airbus gets its product strategy right, it could be Christian Streiff with the biggest smile on his face come Farnborough 2012.
Source: Flight International
