{"id":991,"date":"2006-06-16T07:21:40","date_gmt":"2006-06-16T12:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/short-bus\/"},"modified":"2006-06-16T19:37:03","modified_gmt":"2006-06-17T00:37:03","slug":"short-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/short-bus","title":{"rendered":"Short Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I had a little ramble about Boeing’s manufacturing issues with the 787 Dreamliner<\/a>. This week, it’s Airbus’ turn to get raked over the coals, as its gigantor-plane, the A380, is going to have shipping delays because of wiring problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Airbus’ stock got hammered for this, and now there are some questions about stock sales by executives and their families, according to this WSJ (registration required) piece<\/a>:<\/p>\n

One key question surrounds large stock sales by [co-CEO of Airbus’ parent company] Mr. Forgeard, three of his children and other top EADS managers in mid-March. “We were not aware, not the shareholders, not the directors” of the A380’s problems at that point, Mr. Forgeard said. He said the troubles with the A380 surfaced in April, and that in late May they still seemed surmountable. EADS stock plummeted 26% Wednesday after the announcements of the delay and a profit warning. The stock price rose by Friday to \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c2\u00ac20.50 ($25.85). It remained well below prices in March, when Mr. Forgeard exercised \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c2\u00ac2.5 million worth of options at \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c2\u00ac32.01, and three of his children each sold \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c2\u00ac1.4 million worth of shares at the time at \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c2\u00ac32.82, according to the French stock-market regulator AMF. Board members Francois Auque and Jean-Paul Gut also sold shares.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The BusinessWeek piece on Airbus<\/a> discusses more of the problems with the A380, which seems to me like the giant-SUV of airplanes. It’s funny that the European company comes up with that model as its big splash, while the U.S. company comes up with the smaller, lightweight, fuel-conscious 787.<\/p>\n

I find the workings of various industries fascinating, but the airplane and airline businesses are particularly interesting to me. The battle between Boeing and Airbus helps me think about the role government subsidies and the WTO; changes in materials, manufacturing and design paradigms; economy-of-scale strategies for travel routes, and why the hub-and-spoke model collapsed; and how emerging markets are shaping policy (have any of you guys flown on Singapore Airlines or Emirates?).<\/p>\n

(Update: More on the story — and how it affects airlines — at the NYTimes<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I had a little ramble about Boeing’s manufacturing issues with the 787 Dreamliner. This week, it’s Airbus’ turn to get raked over the coals, as its gigantor-plane, the A380, is going to have shipping delays because of wiring problems. Airbus’ stock got hammered for this, and now there are some questions about stock … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Short Bus”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-fZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1015,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/get-off-the-bus","url_meta":{"origin":991,"position":0},"title":"Get off the bus","author":"Gil","date":"July 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Airbus problems I mentioned two weeks ago have gotten worse. According to this BizWeek article and this followup news item, executives at Airbus and EADS, its parent company, are getting the axe due to utter incompetence in keeping on top of the A380's production. [Airbus sales exec John] Leahy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "travel"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1199,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-nov-10-2006","url_meta":{"origin":991,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Nov. 10, 2006","author":"Gil","date":"November 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"As you know, I've been interested in the development of the new Airbus A380 (the really big plane) and all the production problems Airbus has been having with it. The fact that I fly between 25,000 and 35,000 miles each year is a key contributor to this interest. Barbara Peterson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1141,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/youre-it","url_meta":{"origin":991,"position":2},"title":"You’re IT!","author":"Gil","date":"October 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This conversation from BusinessWeek explores the question, \"Does IT Matter?\" This article from BusinessWeek about the software problems leading to Airbus' $6.1 billion wiring problem answers the question pretty handily, I think. Both of our flights for this trip were on Boeings (767-200 and 757-200), and they were pretty smooth,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4464,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/airbus","url_meta":{"origin":991,"position":3},"title":"Airbus","author":"Gil","date":"September 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a picture from the bus-stop around 6:30 a.m., after I dropped my wife off.","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1365,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-2-2007","url_meta":{"origin":991,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Mar. 2, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"March 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A week off has left me laden with uncommented-upon links, dear reader! Enjoy It's only Revolutions: The books come with introductions by Slavoj \u00c3\u2026\u00c2\u00bdi\u00c3\u2026\u00c2\u00beek, a Slovenian psychoanalyst and social theorist, who assaults both the English language and the intelligence of those who actually manage to figure out what he\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s saying.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Gin"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3266,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-11909","url_meta":{"origin":991,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 1\/19\/09","author":"Gil","date":"January 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Re-reading Montaigne's \"On some verses of Virgil\" and a few chapters of Cultural Amnesia. Clive James just dropped the unmitigated smackdown on Walter Benjamin. (Boy, I really oughtta start watching these sometime.) What I'm listening to: Pretty random stuff on my iTunes, as I think about compiling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=039333354X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}