Seats Of Power

With its C Series acquisition, first A330neo taking off and landmark 100th A380 delivery for Emirates this month, Airbus is ending the year on a high.

- Dominic Ellis

It feels like a return to summer with three days of blue skies over Toulouse, the red and yellow leaves lining the river Garonne providing the only signs we’ve skipped into autumn. Mirroring the favourable weather, Airbus has been basking in its majority ownership announcement in the C Series, providing Bombardier with a brighter outlook after all the uncertainty over the programme and US tariff disputes – and it ended the week seeing off its first A330neo test flight. The European manufacturer will arrive at the Dubai Airshow with a glow this month.

Singularly and collectively, there was much to take in. From aircraft, corporate jet and urban mobility presentations, to campus walkabouts and coach trips encompassing different parts of this vast site – and even a day behind the scenes at Defence and Space learning about the complexity of satellites – the diversity of Airbus’ operation was self-evident. I can’t remember showing my passport so often without leaving the ground, but that was only to be expected in these hardware and data-protecting times.

AIRBUS RAISES SINGLE-AISLE PROFILE

It was a week when what we saw and what we read didn’t always tally. Most of the week saw widebodies in the viewfinder, but single aisles grabbed the limelight with Airbus announcing it will take a majority stake (50.01 percent) in C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP) with Bombardier and Investissement Québec owning around 31 percent and 19 percent respectively. The deal aims to complete by the second half of 2018.

CSALP’s HQ and primary assembly line and related functions will remain in Québec with the support of Airbus’ global reach and scale, but Airbus will expand Final Assembly Line in Canada additional C Series production at its Alabama manufacturing site.