Airbus chief executive Louis Gallois declared yesterday that the European consortium “is back, fully back,” from an odyssey through one of the most trying two years in its history. Any such pronouncement made a day early would no doubt have elicited a hearty belly laugh or two within the Boeing chalet. But after yesterday’s blizzard of order announcements, Gallois and his new management team assembled for yesterday’s main address to the press with an air of confidence not seen since the A380 began showing signs of serious design problems.
Monday’s firm order count of 219 on its own looked impressive, but Gallois took particular delight in new business for the A350, a program that has certainly endured its share of struggles but that, according to the Airbus boss, is well on its way to full definition. “I will send my friend Jim McNerney a brochure of the XWB, because he doesn’t seem to know it as well as our customers,” quipped Gallois in a transparent rebuke of the Boeing CEO’s references to the program’s lack of design maturity.
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