Article from BTNews 17 OCTOBER 2016
Airbus hits 10,000
Singapore Airlines took possession of an Airbus A350XWB at Toulouse on Friday, the 10,000th aircraft to be delivered by the European manufacturer and a milestone few imagined when Airbus began more than 40 years ago. The company has gone from awkward European collaboration to market leader.
Airbus began in the 1960s as a partnership between France, West Germany and Britain. The object was to build an advanced wide-body twin-engine passenger aircraft, the A300, after the individual countries’ manufacturers had failed to come up with a model to challenge US companies like Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas.
The A300 arrived in 1974, ultimately proving a success, and Airbus followed with the A310 and then the narrow-body A320 series, which transformed the company into Boeing’s main rival.
Around 7,000 A320s are now in service and have been followed by the A330, A340 and ultimately the A380 superjumbo. These have added to Airbus’s backlog of nearly 7,000 aircraft, meaning most customers have a long wait.
Sometimes too long – last week, Qatar Airways announced it was ordering Boeings after delays in deliveries of the Airbus A320neo.
But for now, the celebrations in Toulouse are overshadowing any turbulence.
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