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which it was designed to replace. And as a
bonus it could haul two-and-a-half times more
cargo than a 727. By the mid-1970s, Airbus was
starting to be noticed and sales slowly built for
the A300 and the smaller A310. In the 30 years
to 1999, the company sold more than 4,000
jets across a number of designs and had been
able to secure 50 per cent of the world backlog
for commercial jets. As the last century closed
McDonnell Douglas was forced to merged with
Boeing as it was unwilling to make the invest-
ments to compete with Airbus, while Lockheed
has exited the large commercial market in the Twin-Aisle Bets
1980s. In 2000, Airbus launched the A380 - the world’s biggest commer-
cial passenger aircraft. While the A380 has not been the success
Interestingly Airbus came close to a compre- Airbus had hoped and was cancelled earlier this year with a produc-
hensive JV with McDonnell Douglas in the tion run of only 251 other large wide-body models such as the A330
late 80s, before it had really penetrated the used across the world and the all new A350 used by Singapore
US market. The A320 was to be built at Long Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways and Japan Air Lines have been
Beach beside the C-17 and there was to be a runaway successes. To date Airbus has sold 1731 A330s and 893
mixed A330 / MD11 design that would compete of the all composite A350, which is a candidate for Qantas’s Sunrise
with the 747. Project for an aircraft to fly from Sydney to London nonstop.

However, despite press releases being ready; a The key to the success at Airbus has been the embrace of new
personality clash between Franz-Josef Strauss, technology. It realized that the future was the big twin – not a
then Chairman of Airbus and John McDonnell, three-engine jumbo – and then when it introduced the fabulously
then Chairman of McDonnell Douglas killed the successful A320 it introduced Fly-by-Wire technology to revolu-
deal at a lunch in Germany. McDonnell wanted a tionize cockpit designs and systems. Today Airbus has evolved
new single aisle plane to be based on its “long into a truly multinational company with space and defence as well
in the tooth” MD90, whereas Airbus insisted, as helicopters divisions and has 180 locations and 12,000 direct

rightly, that it had to be based on the A320. suppliers globally and its splits the commercial aircraft business
The smallest member of the Airbus family, the roughly 50 / 50 with Boeing. The company has aircraft and helicop-
single aisle 180-230-seat A320 family has gone ter final assembly lines across Asia, Europe and the Americas, and
on to establish Airbus as a commercial jetliner has achieved a more than six-fold order book increase since 2000.
powerhouse. It was first delivered to Air France
in 1988 and by 1999 Airbus had built 1142. But Annual sales are now at EUR63 billion, staff at 133,000 and totals
with the explosion of the low-cost airlines from sales of all commercial aircraft now exceed 19,000.
2000 onwards the number has skyrocketed to
over 8,788 with another 5,851 still to be built. Not bad for fifty years work!

ASIAN AIRLINES & AEROSPACE May/June 2019 | 17