Names Two Officials To Key Posts

Members of the board at European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) have taken addition steps to tighten their control of Airbus, by naming two key company officials to positions at the troubled planemaker.

The Associated Press reports that effective immediately, current Eurocopter chief Fabrice Bregier will take over as chief operating officer of Airbus. EADS CFO Hans Peter Ring will take over as Chief Financial Officer at Airbus, replacing Andreas Sperl. Sperl -- who's been Airbus CFO since 2000 -- will move to another unspecified position within the group.

The continuing leadership shakeups at Airbus result from delays with its A380 and A350 programs. The A380 program is now over two years behind its original schedule -- and the redesign of the medium-range A350XWB (shown below) has yet to be finalized. Those schedule delays and the resulting costs to the company are driving a drastic restructuring effort.

This leadership change is the second such move by EADS in the past month. As Aero-News reported, EADS co-Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois recently replaced Christian Streiff as CEO at Airbus, following Streiff's resignation amid restructuring squabbles. Gallois is the third CEO at Airbus in the past 18 months.

Industry observers say EADS' tightening grip on Airbus leadership is an indication of how unaware it was of Airbus' problems, before news of delays to the A380 came to light.

And it doesn't stop there. The EADS board has also demanded co-CEOs Gallois and Thomas Enders report regularly on all major projects and matters of importance -- including Airbus -- to chairmen Manfred Bischoff and Arnaud Lagardere.

Interestingly, the new management structure at Airbus is distinctly French -- a step away from the traditional Franco-German shared ruling structure of the European consortium. Thomas Enders, meanwhile, has been left with more or less direct control of defense and helicopter operations at EADS.

FMI: www.eads.com