Airbus Making a Move In Japan
According to an article published in the Financial Times, Airbus is trying to make a move into Boeing’s bread and butter territory in Japan.
I had no idea that Airbus had less than 5% of the market in Japan. Less than 5% represents about 50 planes compared to 340+ Boeings. “It’s an unnatural situation,” according to Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive.
I understand that Airbus now holds about 50% of the global commercial jetliner business, but that wasn’t always the case. I don’t understand why it’s unnatural that there are more Boeing jets than Airbus jets in Japan, it seems to me that more Boeings is the natural state. That’s a whole other story though.
My question is this, Japan Airlines went bankrupt, they have no money, so how are they going to buy planes? What makes Airbus think that JAL is going to dump all their Boeings, for which I’m sure JAL has a large inventory of facilities like trained mechanics, maintenance facilities, spare parts inventory and who knows what else in favor of buying all new inventory for Airbus jets.
This is one of those things that I don’t understand about the airline industry.
I can understand that Airbus wants to gain a foothold in Japan, since they have the second largest economy in the world right now, but their main potential client is broke. Why not concentrate on China, and just ignore broke Japan Airlines?
What do you think?
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i think they should just concentrate on china although ANA isnt bankrupt so…..
I didn’t think they were either, but that FT article says they merged with JAL, and that’s how JAL ended up with 50 Airbus jets. Maybe the FT article is wrong… I agree that Airbus should focus on China and the rest of the pacific rim rather than Japan, but that’s just me.