Quote:
Originally Posted by squishypimp
airbus maybe be able to recover if they can just stop promissing the A380 until its 100% ready to go.
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Squishy, the airplane business is like the construction business - you don't start building until someone has signed up to buy it.
Bombardier in the last two years has been pushing a potential new plane, a 140 seat "very large" variant of it's regional jets (which typically seat up to 100 or so). The idea being to offer a relatively fuel effecient smaller style jet that can pick up the work of older 737s, 727s, and other of the small end of the large jet business. They put together drawings, they put together specs, they got the unions on side, and went out to sell nothing more than an idea.
less than a year later, the plans were scrapped even though it was a good idea - nobody would buy it. They won't build it hoping the market comes to them, they build it because they have orders on the books.
Airbus did the same thing witht he A380, developed it to a point, got people on board signed up, then started to build airplanes. The Fedex deliveries weren't scheduled until 2008 or 2009 anyway... it isn't like they just failed to deliver this week.
The airliner business is very different!