Plan for Airbus Includes Job Cuts

Some information about the revamping plans for Airbus, the beleaguered European aircraft company, began to trickle out on Tuesday.

A German official said his country would lose about 3,500 jobs and that about 4,500 would be trimmed in France in a cost-cutting effort.

The overhaul, to be announced on Wednesday, also calls for an additional 1,000 jobs to be cut in Spain and Britain, bringing the total number of jobs to be eliminated to around 9,000, according to the official, who requested anonymity because Airbus had yet to make its plans public.

In Hamburg, which is the center of Airbus production in Germany, the official said the city expected to lose 1,000 jobs, but that the city had been assured that forced layoffs would be avoided. Jobs will be eliminated mainly through attrition and layoffs of temporary workers.

But Hamburg will also receive a production line of the A320, the single-aisle jet that Airbus now produces in Toulouse, France, the official said. That has led to some hope that a shift to production of the highly successful plane would ultimately benefit Hamburg.

The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, the parent company of Airbus, said late Monday that its board had unanimously approved the plan — one week after it had been stymied by a French-German dispute over job cuts. French and German interests each hold 22.5 percent of the EADS voting stock.

Repeated delays in the production of the A380 superjumbo lent impetus to cost-cutting and streamlining at Airbus and highlighted how unwieldy logistics, notably a division of A380 production between Hamburg and Toulouse, contributed to the crisis.

EADS expects the plan, known as Power8, to eliminate about 5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in costs over the next three years. Airbus officials would not discuss the plans.

Union leaders met in Brussels on Tuesday to plan their response.

source:www.nytimes.com