Company Watch - Airbus

AirGuide Business, July 14, 2008

Airbus parent EADS had hedged a volume of about USD$15 billion at an average exchange rate of USD$1.25 per euro for 2009, Ring told the paper. For 2010, the company had as of March 31 hedged a volume of about USD$14 billion at an average of USD$1.35 per euro. EADS had since hedged further at between USD$1.50 and USD$1.55 per euro, Ring said. 7/11/2008

Airbus parent EADS was meanwhile progressing well with its Power8 cost-cutting program, designed to bring savings of EUR2.1 billion by 2010 and slash 10,000 jobs, despite difficulties in selling Airbus plants. EADS was not yet ready to publicise details of additional cost-saving measures above and beyond Power8 and said it would take time as it grapples with how best to cope with the impact of the weak dollar and soaring oil price. 7/11/2008

Airbus parent EADS' Chief Financial Officer Hans Peter Ring could revise the European aerospace group's 2008 profit forecast as it takes a hit from the weak dollar and high oil price, he told Boersen-Zeitung newspaper. Ring currently still expected the company to achieve earnings before interest and tax of about EUR1.8 billion euros (USD$2.83 billion) this year, the paper said. And a target for some 700 plane orders at its Airbus aircraft unit remained realistic. But Ring acknowledged in an interview with the German daily that EADS' earnings forecast was coming under pressure from the weakness of the dollar. EADS had hedged a volume of about USD$15 billion at an average exchange rate of USD$1.25 per euro for 2009, Ring told the paper. For 2010, the company had as of March 31 hedged a volume of about USD$14 billion at an average of USD$1.35 per euro. EADS had since hedged further at between USD$1.50 and USD$1.55 per euro, Ring said. 7/11/2008

Airbus appointed a new head of the delayed A380, the world's largest airliner on Thursday. It named 51-year-old Alain Flourens as head of the A380 program, replacing Mario Heinen, who will head the planemaker's cross-border center of excellence for fuselage and cabins. Heinen replaces Ruediger Fuchs "who wishes to pursue other opportunities outside Airbus," it said in a statement. Cabin wiring problems have been blamed for delays of up to two years in delivering the 525-seat double-decker to airlines. 7/10/2008

Airbus parent EADS' CEO said he is confident his company and U.S. partner Northrop Grumman Corp. will win a disputed $35 billion Pentagon Air Force tanker contract when the bidding process reopens. The Air Force in February selected the Northrop team to replace 179 Eisenhower-era aerial refueling planes. Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ) filed a protest in March, and last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will reopen the bid. The deal - one of the largest in Pentagon history - is the first of three contracts worth up to $100 billion to replace nearly 600 refueling tankers over the next 30 years. 7/14/2008

Despite the Pentagon decision last week to re-do the big Air Force refueling tanker competition awarded in February to Airbus parent EADS and its partner Northrop Grumman, top EADS executives remain determined to break into the U.S. defense market. They talked about making a billion-dollar U.S. acquisition next year. And they are eyeing more than tankers. Saturday, the EADS leadership shrugged off the tanker re-bid, expressing confidence that the original award would be sustained. And executives spoke optimistically of winning another big U.S. military airplane contract: aiming to eventually replace more than 450 U.S. Army mid-size transport planes. Boeing doesn't even have a candidate plane for that role. Reported by The Seattle Times. 7/14/2008