If you’re trapped in the world of “Web 2.0″ and the Internet, the larger face of business might well pass you by, which is too bad. Between ongoing stock options scandals, excessive executive pay for failed performance and the dramatic vacillation of the stock market, the errors are big, the people are larger than life, and the problems are often shocking.
Little has surprised me more, however, than watching and tracking the ongoing failure of Airbus, the EU-backed competitor to American cornerstone Boeing (NYSE: BA). If you ever get on a plane, odds are good it’s built by one of these firms. Popular Boeing planes include the 737 and 747, and the A320 is the best-selling Airbus craft. (other possibilities include the Lockheed’s L-1011 (NYSE:LMT) and McDonnell Douglas’s DC-10, but that’s another story).
When Airbus announced the A380, the industry was thrilled. A two story, 555-seat jet that had an extraordinary range (8000 miles), lots of long-haul airlines ordered the planes. Then a cargo version of the plane was announced and it too received lots of orders: if you’re FedEx, for example, a plane that’s twice the size is clearly going to be more efficient for transporting packages. Sure you had to build longer, stronger runways and that few airports can handle the monster plane, but that’s just progress, right?
Everything was going well until the different engineering groups inside Airbus forgot to talk with each other and the result has been nothing short of catastrophic…
January 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
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