Spinning The Wheel
With the WTO lambasting Europe for the illegal subsidies poured all over the Airbus portfolio, it comes as very little surprise that once again, Airbus and parent EADS have been caught short – and no, that doesn’t mean someone emulated Jean Pierson’s alleged trouser-dropping antics to win an airplane order.
Lexington Institutes Dr. L. Thompson produced a startling short piece yesterday that has been “ignored”, shall we say, by quite a few quarters - especially by the usual one-trick pony, broken-record advocates of an Airbus or split-deal procurement for the US Air Force KC-X tanker selection.
Dr. Thompson illustrates the trans-Atlantic disparity in EADS’ marketing of the A330 for the tanker selection and dissects the numbers the likes of the aerospace media seldom seem to ask:
“…in a September 25 letter to members of Congress about the company’s bid to provide a future tanker for the U.S. Air Force, Airbus says, “the Airbus product line is 45% U.S. sourced.” Not bad — even France doesn’t supply that much Airbus content. But back in Paris, where the subsidies originate, EADS has a different story. The company told Les Echos, the Parisian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, that 21% of the content on Airbus planes comes from North America.“
Of course, this isn’t the first time EADS or Airbus have been so “candid” about the content of their proposed tanker, especially when you consider that somehow Northrop Grumman is the “prime contractor” for the tanker, despite having worked on zero projects with either EADS or its Airbus arm - let alone had anything meaningful to do with any A330 model.
The A330MRTT at best, has a dubious history while EADS still battles to address a key concern in that the boom designed for the model does not work and has failed to transfer any fuel through it - much to the utter dismay of the Royal Australian Air Force that had hoped the problem would have been solved over twelve months ago.
Privately, Northrop Grumman is not convinced it could deliver a workable boom for the required entry into service as outlined by the US Air Force. Suddenly “more” isn’t appealing…
Of course, what would be better is for Airbus or parent EADS to clarify just what percentage of content of the A330 is US-sourced; is it 45% or is it 21%?
Monsieur Gallois?
Like the soundtrack, you can spin the wheel whichever way you like - although I saved this little gem for the end (click image to enlarge).
EADS/Airbus in 2004 claimed the A380 comprised 50% (or half) content from US based vendors/companies. Just a few years later in Les Echos, the content supplied to the same airplane from Europe (or France) is an astonishing 76%!
So, you have to ask the question - does Northrop Grumman really believe a tanker win for them will secure/support “48,000” US jobs while Airbus seeks yet more aid on the A350XWB to distort the marketplace and ship jobs to France and Germany?
Most folk feel sorry for those in the state of Alabama - particularly if they really believe they will be the grand recipients of all these mythical jobs.
The WTO ruling can only be ignored for so long by the US Air Force. If they do not put it in to play, folks on Capitol Hill certainly will.
46 comments October 8th, 2009
