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Airbus/EADS
Airbus SE (SE = Societas Europaea, a public company registered in accordance with the corporate law of the European Union) is a European multinational corporation, registered in the Netherlands and trading shares in France, Germany and Spain. It designs, manufactures, and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures in multiple countries both inside and outside the European Union. The company has three divisions: Airbus Commercial Aircraft, Airbus Defence and Space, and Airbus Helicopters.
The name "Airbus" was taken from a non-proprietary term used by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial aircraft of a certain size and range, for this term was acceptable to the French linguistically.
Airbus's corporate headquarters is located in Leiden, Netherlands, and the main office is located in Toulouse, France. The main civil aeroplane business is based in Blagnac, France, a suburb of Toulouse, with production and manufacturing facilities mainly in France, Germany, Spain, China, United Kingdom and the United States. Final assembly production is based at Toulouse, France; Hamburg, Germany; Seville, Spain; Tianjin, China, and Mobile, Alabama, United States.
Airbus began in 1970 as a consortium of European aerospace manufacturers to manufacture civil aircraft to compete with American companies. It was formally established as Airbus Industrie GIE (GIE = Groupement d'Intérêt Economique avec un siège en Belgique) on 18 December 1970, formed by a government initiative between France, West Germany and the UK that originated in 1967. Since the UK withdrew support for the consortium in April 1969, its initial shareholders were the French company Aérospatiale and the West German company Deutsche Airbus, each owning a 50% share.
In October 1971 the Spanish company CASA acquired a 4.2% share of Airbus Industrie, with Aérospatiale and Deutsche Airbus reducing their stakes to 47.9%. In January 1979 British Aerospace (BAe), which had absorbed Hawker Siddeley in 1977, acquired a 20% share of Airbus Industrie. The majority shareholders reduced their shares to 37.9%, while CASA retained its 4.2%.
Aérospatiale and Deutsche Airbus each took a 36.5% share of production work, Hawker Siddeley 20% and the Dutch company Fokker 7%. Each company would deliver its sections as fully equipped, ready-to-fly items.
Deutsche Aerospace AG (DASA) and the Spanish aircraft company Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) agreed to merge with the signature of a memorandum of understanding on 11 June 1999. On 14 October 1999 DASA agreed to merge with Aérospatiale-Matra to create the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). 10 July 2000 was "Day One" for the new company, which became the world's second-largest aerospace company after Boeing and the second-largest European arms manufacturer after BAE Systems.
In 2000 production assets of Airbus Industrie were transferred to a new company, Airbus SAS, in which France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom participate.
In January 2001 Airbus Industrie was transformed from an inherently inefficient consortium structure to a formal joint stock company, with legal and tax procedures being finalised on 11 July. Both EADS and BAE transferred ownership of their Airbus factories to the new Airbus SAS in return for 80 % and 20 % shares in the new company respectively. In April 2001 EADS agreed to merge its missile businesses with those of BAE Systems and Alenia Marconi Systems (BAE/Finmeccanica) to form MBDA (Matra BAE Dynamics Alenia). EADS took a 37.5 % share of the new company that was formally established in December 2001 and which thus became the world's second-largest missile manufacturer.
In 2006, EADS acquired BAE Systems's remaining 20% of Airbus. EADS NV was renamed Airbus Group NV and SE in 2014, and 2015, respectively. Due to the dominance of the Airbus SAS division within Airbus Group SE, these parent and subsidiary companies were merged in January 2017, keeping the name of the parent company. The company was given its present name (Airbus SE) in April 2017.
On 16 October 2017, Airbus and Bombardier Aerospace announced a partnership on the CSeries program, with Airbus acquiring a 50.01% majority stake, Bombardier keeping 31% and Investissement Québec 19%, to expand in an estimated market of more than 6,000 new 100-150 seat aircraft over 20 years. Airbus’s supply chain expertise should save production costs but headquarters and assembly remain in Québec while U.S. customers would benefit from a second assembly line in Mobile, Alabama. This transaction was subject to regulatory approvals and was expected to be completed in 2018. Airbus did not pay for its share in the program, nor did it assume any debt. Airbus insists that the company has no plan to buy out Bombardier's stake in the Cseries program and Bombardier would remain a strategic partner after 2025, however clauses allow it to buy out Quebec's share in 2023 and Bombardier's 7 years after the deal closes, though it also stipulates production is required to remain in Quebec until at least 2041.
On June 8, 2018, after regulatory approval, Airbus and Bombardier announced that Airbus will get a majority stake on July 1, 2018. The head office, leadership team and primary final assembly line will stay in Mirabel, with its workforce of 2,200. Bombardier will fund the cash shortfalls if required, up to US$610 million from the second half of 2018 to 2021. The FAL in Mobile will start deliveries in 2020 with a monthly production rate of four, rising to six for a capacity of eight while the main Mirabel FAL can go to ten.
Airbus Commercial Aircraft | Airbus Defence and Space | Airbus Helicopters
Airbus A220
Airbus A300
Airbus A310
Airbus A310 MRTT
Airbus A318
Airbus ACJ318
Airbus A319
Airbus ACJ319
Airbus A320
Airbus ACJ320
Airbus A320neo
Airbus A321
Airbus A321neo
Airbus A330
Airbus A330 MRTT
Airbus A340
Airbus A350
Airbus A380
Airbus Helicopters EC135
Airbus Helicopters H125
Airbus Helicopters H145
Airbus Helicopters H175
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