Louis Gallois, the French civil servant brought in to help heal Franco-German divisions at EADS earlier this year, is to take charge of the aerospace group's troubled aircraft subsidiary Airbus, after the abrupt departure of its new chief executive.
Christian Streiff, appointed just three months ago after a management crisis, finally resigned yesterday after more than a week of tense negotiations with EADS and its Franco-German shareholders.
The former Saint-Gobain executive was insisting on more autonomy to implement the restructuring plan he unveiled last week than the EADS board was prepared to concede. The crisis threatened to overwhelm Airbus, which is trying to recover from severe problems on its A380 superjumbo, the world's largest passenger aircraft.
Management power struggles and shareholder rivalries have distracted attention from increasing problems at Europe's flagship aircraft maker, which last week unveiled a €2 billion cost-cutting programme.
It is understood that the French government, which has a 15 per cent stake in EADS, agreed to Mr Streiff's departure yesterday afternoon after initially supporting him. However, the deal was reached only after the EADS shareholders agreed Mr Gallois could retain both his EADS role as co-chief executive as well as the Airbus post.
He does not expect to appoint a chief operating officer.
A similar proposal was resisted by the aerospace group's German shareholder DaimlerChrysler a year ago when it was mooted by the former Airbus chief and EADS executive Nöel Forgeard, who left after a share-dealing controversy this summer.
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