"Better An End With Horror Than Horror Without End"
The saga over Airbus Military's stillborn A400M military
transport aircraft has grown to increasingly resemble a Margaret
Mitchell tale... and on Sunday, Airbus CEO Tom Enders suggested he
frankly doesn't give a [darn] anymore.
As ANN reported earlier this month, countries
and corporations supporting the turboprop airlifter program have
expressed serious doubts whether they would continue support for
the oft-delayed cargo aircraft, particularly since EADS announced
in January it would be another four years before the first planes
were delivered to member nations in the Organisation Conjointe de
Coopération en matière d'ARmement (OCCAR) agreement,
ostensibly due to ongoing technical problems with the aircraft's
engines.
The governments of Britain and Germany have threatened to pull
further support for the embattled program. As EADS will miss a key
contractual milestone with the A400M -- first flight of the
aircraft by the end of this month -- customers have the option of
killing their orders for the plane and withdrawing from the
program.
In comments made during an interview Sunday with Germany's Der
Spiegel, Enders all-but stated outright that parent company EADS
could not build the transport plane under current contract
terms.
He did not elaborate on whether that meant Airbus hoped to
renegotiate its OCCAR contracts, or would consider pulling out of
the program outright... but Reuters reports Enders did pointedly
say he refused to make "pilgrimage to Berlin or Paris to plead for
a continuation of the program under conditions that are not
acceptable to us... Better an end with horror than horror without
an end."
Incidentally, those comments to Der Speigel came as another
German publication, Rheinische Post, reported Sunday that Enders
was a top candidate to takeover as head of the German state railway
system, Deutsche Bahn. The current head of that enterprise has
offered to resign following a corporate scandal... which sounds
very much like how Enders, once co-CEO of EADS with Louis Gallois,
came to be head of Airbus.
On Monday, the German government has flatly denied Enders is a
candidate for the rail job... while EADS issued a terse statement
"clarifying" Enders' remarks.
Without referring to the Airbus chief by name, EADS "confirms
that it remains fully committed to the construction of the A400M
that will be the most complete high performance military plane for
the coming decades"... but then conceded "the contract signed in
2003 does not provide the necessary conditions for the successful
development of the programme, firstly because of an unrealistic
timetable, and secondly because the commercial nature of the
contract does not fit to the reality of a military programme
containing high technological risks."
EADS called on OCCAR member nations to accept a three month
moratorium period proposed by OCCAR, "to put [the A400M] back on
tracks within conditions acceptable by all parties," instead of
those nations exercising their right to pull out from the program
completely.
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