Airbus is planning to cut about 10,000 jobs from its workforce of more than 55,000 during the next three years as part of its controversial restructuring programme, Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, said yesterday.
An announcement of the scale of the job cuts and plans for the reorganisation of Airbus manufacturing at its 16 plants across Europe had to be cancelled on Monday in the face of renewed conflict between the French and German shareholders of EADS, the Airbus parent company, backed by their respective governments.
The Germans claimed they were being forced to bear the brunt of the cuts, while the French were getting most of the benefit of work on the new big jet programme, the A350.
Politicians from Germany and France were quick to insist yesterday that job cuts and investment in future aircraft programmes at Airbus had to be balanced "fairly".
It is expected that Tom Enders and Louis Gallois, the German and French co-chief executives of Airbus, will meet before the end of the week to try to hammer out a solution. A resolution of the conflict could come as early as next week.
Key to the disagreement is the workshare on the A350 and where investment in new carbon fibre composites technology and manufacturing facilities for the A350 fuselage should be located. - (Financial Times service)
