airbus

Some years ago, we asked a question : how come a new team with no track record can get sponsorship from major corporations when more established teams, with a track record, struggle?

Now, by a roundabout way, that question might be under investigation by anti-corruption authorities in several countries.

It was announced yesterday that IndiGo, a large budget carrier in India is expanding its fleet with an additional 300 Airbus A320 Neos with a headline price of USD33,000 million. IndiGo has, unlike several of its competitors, not gone out of business. But it is under the cosh precisely because it flies A320 Neos.

Boeing plays dirty:what it can't win with honest competition it tries to win by alleging dirty tricks by rivals with a view to undermining their access to markets. As a major US employer, when it starts action in the US, it's always assumed that it has home court advantage and because those judging are political appointees that vested and conflicts of interest will almost inevitably mean a decision in favour of Boeing. To the surprise of all, Boeing's action against Bombardier, has been thrown out.

Almost every couple of weeks, we hear that Airbus is not achieving orders, that its order book is depleted, that if it doesn't get orders soon it's going to crash and burn. The biggest comments are directed at the biggest aircraft: the A380 with "no new orders, A380 is a failure" being the general drift.

But here's the thing: Airbus has orders in abundance: indeed, it could not satisfy its existing orders within a year if it tried.

The Geneva Motor Show is the place where many companies put out their wilder concept cars. But Airbus has turned up with a concept that actually works in practice but is likely to have even more hurdles to legal use than driverless cars. It's.. well, it defies simple description but one thing it isn't is a car that flies and another thing it isn't is a flying thing that travels on the roads.