Mike Martin
Air show history was made yesterday when both Airbus Industrie and Boeing leaders held press conferences and made almost no reference to each other. Both companies are looking inwards and the emerging picture is fascinating.
Boeing president Harry Stonecipher made what amounted to a gracious and heartfelt corporate apology to customers hit by production delays, pledging to focus in future on what the company does best and to think small where the company is too big.
"Most of all, where we have been too arrogant, too distracted, or too self-satisfied, we are going to be much more intense and much more focused on the things that really matter," he said.
"I am speaking here of satisfying the customer in every way, while providing the highest quality for the lowest cost."
Series
He was speaking after the sacking of Boeing Commercial Aircraft Group chief Ron Woodard, the culmination of a series of production and profitability issues which have dogged the Seattle-based giant.
He said that Woodard was not a "sacrificial lamb" and that Boeing chairman Phil Condit will survive in his post.
"Mr Woodard did not perform and achieve the kind of results we were looking for," he said.
Earlier, Stonecipher had said that the recent management shake-up had been about three things: "Performance, performance and performance."
"It has been our own failure to execute inside.
"This is a company with a great past and an even greater future. All we need to do is execute, and that is exactly what we are going to do."
Only metres away from Boeing's mea culpa, the Airbus folk were gathered.
They could have been forgiven had they sounded a slightly triumphalist note having recently attained their expressed ambition of securing 50% of the market.
But there was none of that. Speaking for the first time since becoming chief executive officer, Noel Forgeard signalled his intention to keep the focus firmly on "shareholder value."
Increase
With that, he announced a 3% increase in the price of all Airbus aircraft and he acknowledged that the Airbus A3XX project "-has evolved" to around $10 billion - up from the $8 billion previously reckoned.
With the creation of Airbus as a new Single Corporate Entity (SCE) now expected by mid-1999, Forgeard's eye is firmly on the financial and investment community.
He emphasised the production efficiencies made in both single aisle and widebody aircraft and said there are improvements still to be made.
The scrapping of the AE31X project, planned with AVIC of China was a mutually agreed decision made on viability grounds.
Source: Flight Daily News
