Airbus’s Latest Jetliner Takes Its First Flight

There was a lot more riding on it than the multinational crew of two test pilots and four engineers sharing the inaugural flight.

The new aircraft carries the burden of dispelling Airbus’s reputation for cross-cultural and industrial dysfunction that caused costly delays in the introduction of the company’s previous plane, the A380 superjumbo. And in the wake of last year’s failed merger of the plane maker’s parent, European Aeronautic Defense Space, with the British military contractor BAE Systems, the company is betting its future ever more heavily on the success of commercial jets like the A350.

It is no coincidence that Airbus showed off the A350 — a twin-engine wide-body jet meant to compete with the 787 Dreamliner and 777 from Boeing — as the global aviation industry assembled for the biennial Paris Air Show, which is scheduled to open Monday at Le Bourget airport north of the French capital. As always at the show, the world’s largest aerospace bazaar, any other announcements by other industry players will be undercard matches compared to the perennial Airbus vs. Boeing main event.

At precisely 10 a.m., the A350 lifted effortlessly from the sun-dappled runway at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, the purr of its two Rolls-Royce engines momentarily drowned out by the cheers and whistles of the throng of Airbus employees, well-wishers and members of the media who had gathered — camera phones at the ready — to capture the moment.

The distinctive curled tips of the jet’s carbon-fiber wings glinted briefly before it slipped into the clouds.

Judith Lindner, a 36-year-old quality control technician from an Airbus factory in Stade, Germany, whooped as the jet sailed past, jabbing her thumb in the air.

“What a tremendous thrill — fantastic,” said Ms. Lindner, who added that she personally helped to inspect the vertical stabilizer on the plane’s tail. “I feel such a mix of pride and relief.”

Analysts said the value of a well-timed and well-executed A350 debut could not be overestimated. Indeed, some said they still expected that Airbus, despite Friday’s test flight in Toulouse, would try to maintain the public-relations momentum by staging a A350 flyby sometime during the weeklong show in Paris, about a 90-minute flight north of Toulouse.

It would be hard for Airbus to find a bigger stage. Show organizers said they expected the chalets and exhibition halls of the air show to be filled with more than 2,200 companies from more than 40 countries. As many as 350,000 visitors from the aerospace industry, as well as the public, are expected over the course of the week.

Even Boeing executives grudgingly acknowledged that the timing of the A350 flight was likely to steal much of the U.S. company’s thunder at the event.

“I know they work hard to keep the home fans entertained,” Randy Tinseth, Boeing’s head of marketing, said at a briefing Tuesday in Paris.

Despite the likely buzz from Airbus’s new plane, though, this year’s show might well be relatively subdued in terms of new jet order announcements, given the uncertain near-term outlook for airline profits and economic growth, particularly in emerging markets.

A slowdown in new orders would not spell disaster, however. A frenetic buying spree by airlines over the past three years has left both Airbus and Boeing with order books fat enough to keep their assembly lines humming for much of the next decade.

Not so long ago, prospects did not look nearly as bright for Airbus, when it was struggling to roll out its last big-bet plane: the twin-deck A380. Miscommunication in the design, manufacturing and installation of several hundred kilometers of electrical cables resulted in a series of missteps in the mid-2000s that delayed the A380’s first delivery by three years. The debacle prompted a management reshuffle in 2006 and more than $6 billion in losses.

Airbus executives say they are determined not to repeat the experience.

For the new A350, the company has reconceived its internal design systems and decision making, even involving key suppliers in the design process from the start. And while in the past Airbus engineers in France and Germany operated independently — in some cases using incompatible tools and software — they now collaborate virtually, working from shared digital blueprints and in real time. As the A350’s flight testing progresses and Airbus fine-tunes its design over the coming 12 to 18 months, it hopes to minimize delays through quicker and more transparent communication across the production and supply chains.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/business/global/airbuss-latest-jetliner-takes-its-first-flight.html?partner=rss&emc=rss