Following a report by Les Echos yesterday, French financial regulator AMF

announced that it was launching sanction proceedings against EADS over allegations of insider trading and misleading financial information. 17 of the group’sexecutives will be notified with charges. In a statement, Louis Gallois acknowledged that theopening of this long procedure could tarnish EADS’s “image and reputation” for a long time,but promised that the group would defend itself “vigorously” and support its executivesimplicated in the case. EADS “intends to demonstrate that it has applied standards ofexcellence when communicating to the market and has acted with full transparency”, he said.Mr Gallois also sent a letter to the group’s 116,000 staff around the world to urge them to “bepatient and support each other” in the face of this difficult period.

Börsen-Zeitung devotes a special report to Airbus’s “rocky reorganisation”.

The failed negotiations with Bremen-based supplier OHB over the sale ofthe three biggest Airbus plants in Germany represent a significant setback for the planemaker and its reorganisation plans. CEO Thomas Enders lost some precious time in hiseffort to guide the company out of the crisis. In consequence, Airbus might even face delaysin its schedule for the new A350 XWB, due for launch in 2013. The German newspapercomments that it would be preferable for Airbus to tell its customers about possible delays,instead of making them believe that the deadline is realistic.
Börsen-Zeitung

China Southern Airlines has decided to lease eight Airbus A321-200s

instead of buying them as initially planned. The airline had agreed to purchase 50 A320-familyaircraft in July 2006, including A321s. In the meantime, it has transferred the purchasingrights of the eight aircraft to two Chinese leasing companies, from which it will then leasethem under the revised plan.
Dow Jones Newswires (02/04)

Airbus commits to aircraft recycling.

Two years after the launch of the Pamela test phase,Airbus and Sita, the waste management subsidiary of Suez Environnement, will kick-start theindustrial phase of their aircraft dismantling project in October 2008. Their dismantling andrecycling platform, dubbed Tarmac, has a storage capacity for 22 aircraft and aims todismantle between 20 and 30 aircraft per year. Beyond environmental concerns, the stake ofthis project for Airbus is the dominance of the spare-part market. Within the next 20 years,the number of end-of-life aircraft should reach up to 6,000 units, or 300 per year in average.
La Tribune

US aviation regulator FAA has issued

a warning over the safety of landing gears of“several hundreds” of Boeing planes worldwide. In its warning issued last week, the FAAclaimed that some components of the landing gears had been coated with a type of enamelpaint that makes it more difficult to detect corrosion and is not authorised by currentmaintenance rules. AAR Corp., a Miami-based aircraft maintenance company who suppliedthe parts in more than 300 cases, mainly for Boeing 747 and 767 planes, denied theinformation and urged the FAA to produce explanations.
AFP (01/04), Frankfurter Allgemeine

The International Air Transport Association (IATA)

cut its profit forecasts for theglobal airline industry in 2008, for the second time in four months. Citing weakereconomic conditions worldwide and ever-rising fuel prices, IATA said yesterday that itexpected the industry to post a combined net profit of $ 4.5Bn this year, down from aprevious estimate of $ 5Bn. IATA managing director Giovanni Bisignani also urgedgovernments to remove restrictions on the ownership of airlines in order to driveconsolidation, claiming there was “no long-term future” for a “fragmented industry of over1,000 players” that is “constantly on the verge of intensive care”.
The Wall Street Journal Europe