So this is a total and absolute hit piece.

As far as commercial airliners are concerned, there are two companies that supply the world: Boeing and Airbus. Boeing is a publicly-traded American company. Airbus is a heavily subsidized European governmental consortium that includes British Aerospace like three different ways.

Back in the '90s Airbus got severely jealous of all the money Boeing was still making on 747s. They started running around pitching giant airliners to see who was interested. They spooked McDonnell-Douglas into trying some concepts. Boeing, for their part, had decided that people weren't really buying 747s any more and saw a future full of smaller, regional routes.

...but they didn't want Airbus to know that.

I had a friend who was a part of the NLA Group. Boeing spent about $100m on a project they knew would never come to light because they wanted to goad Airbus into thinking the A380 had a market. As soon as Airbus had orders for the 380, they canned the project and made public the fact that they were never really serious in the first place.

And it has cost them dearly.

Wanna talk about "outsourcing?" The A380 is so scattered and disorganized that when they first started putting them together they discovered that the wiring harness was 10 feet too short. Wanna talk about "program costs?" The thing is so huge you have to redesign airports to accomodate it. Wanna talk production overruns? The 380 went from 8 billion go 11 billion before they'd even finished a plane. How 'bout delays? The TL;DR of this is "2 years late, 45% attrition of orders due to slipped contracts."

Which, by the way, had the effect Boeing desired - it pounded Airbus' stock price.

So they finally get the things in the sky and lo and behold, the wings crack. I live near LAX. I see a Qantas A380 sitting at the end of the runway every time I go running. It sat there for six months.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone who wanted 380s has 380s. Those that do have them aren't using them as people-haulers - they're using them for $15k-per-seat "pimp class travel." Airbus' stock is struggling while Boeing is filling orders from frustrated A380 buyers who had their contracts cancelled with a stretch 747. What's Airbus' solution?

A 787 competitor.

Airbus got played, which means the EU got played, which means Boeing can have a run of bum batteries and it's "the costs of outsourcing" but when Airbus loses its lunch building a plane that nobody really wants, it's because of a "fickle market."

"Nightmare waiting to happen." You'd think it was an article in The Mirror. No, guys, you fucking lost. Sorry.