Boeing warns Japanese partners against Airbus deal

Boeing warns Japanese partners against Airbus deal

TOKYO (AFP): Boeing Corp. warned its long-standing Japanese
partners Tuesday against embracing the A380 superjumbo project
being developed by fierce rival Airbus Industrie.

"We also have partners on projects and when you have partners,
you expect them to work with you on that particular project and
not on one that is directly competitive to that," Boeing chief
Phil Condit said.

Condit was speaking in Tokyo a day after the European company
gave a June deadline to Japanese industrial concerns to decide on
whether they want to take part in building the world's biggest
passenger plane.

Condit said Boeing was happy for its Japanese partners to
arrange sub-contractual supply agreements with other companies.

"We have a lot of different suppliers that work for Boeing and
Airbus and that's OK," the Boeing chief executive told a news
conference.

But Boeing's Japanese partners should not enter into a risk-
taking partnership that would exclude the U.S. giant, such as the
A380 project, Condit said.

"I have a great deal of faith that they will make a good
decision, and that the decision will be to work with us, as they
have been for a very long time."

Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard announced on Monday that
companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy
Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries had until June to decide
whether to take an 8.0 percent share in the A380 development
program.

The European company already has 62 firm orders for its giant
555-seater airliner, and Forgeard warned that Japanese parts
manufacturers risked missing out on a "historic" opportunity.

Condit said Boeing's strategy was "not to try to block
Airbus."

"The strategy is to run a very good business -- and to run a
good business, you need good partners," he said.

While the Seattle-based giant has given up trying to match the
A380 with the 747X -- a stretched version of its aging mainstay
of long-haul jumbo jet fleets -- it recently unveiled plans for
the Sonic Cruiser, a smaller jet which will fly at just below the
speed of sound.

Condit meanwhile repeated an assertion that there was not a
sufficiently large market to make the A380 profitable, claiming
that the time advantage and the diversification of air transport
argued in favor of smaller, faster aircraft.

Boeing was currently assessing the potential market for the
Sonic Cruiser, Condit said, and the next stage would be to
establish a working group with the airlines to see what their
needs are. If the project goes ahead, the Boeing chief said he
expected the Japanese parts makers to come onboard.

"Japanese industry has been a major partner on our last two
programs, the 767 and 777: I would expect that there is a very
high probability they would be partners on this program," he
said.