BA backs the Bus and the Dreamliner

British Airways splits its future plane purchases between Boeing and Airbus. Although earlier statements suggested that the company was not interested in a Superjumbo sized carrier such as the new generation A380, Willie Walsh and his team show a chess-like grasp of strategy

Speculation in Seattle was pretty much right. A week before any official announcement, Industry insider James Wallace noted

The campaign is a key showdown between the A380 and 747-8 Intercontinental and the 787 and A350 . So far, only Lufthansa has ordered the passenger version of the 747-8. But Airbus also needs another major international customer to back the A380. It has repeat orders from Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines, but Airbus has long sought to bring BA into the A380 fold.

Jefferies & Co. analyst Howard Rubel told the AP he believes investors are expecting British Airways to split its order between the two aerospace rivals.
“I think B.A. wants to bring a little competition into the mix,” he said.
BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh has visited Boeing and Airbus for briefings on their planes.
The airline recently ordered more 777s.
Even though British Airways early on said the A380 was too big for its needs, Walsh has said the airline is now interested in the big Airbus jet, which will enter airline service next month with Singapore Airlines after a two-year delay.

Wallace’s blog also attracted a remarkable set of speculations about the prospective decision. Most seemed to be based on ‘sources close to Boeing or BA’. The following was typical

Posted by unregistered user at 9/20/07 9:21 a.m.
I’ve heard 10 A380’s + options on 10 more , 20 787’s + 10 options and 10 A350’s + 10 options

When the news of the decision was formally announced it was widely replicated from news agency sources. I took this from The BBC, but found it on all the main news feeds.

BA will buy 12 Airbus A380 superjumbos and 24 Boeing 787s, to be delivered between 2010 and 2014, for a reported $8.2bn (£4.1bn). The group also has options to buy seven more A380s as well as a further 18 Dreamliners from Boeing.
Further negotiations will occur so that BA can replace its remaining 747-400s. This appears to be between the 787-10 and the 777-300 ER from Boeing, and the Airbus A350

The Boeing reaction was between gritted teeth:

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] is honored that British Airways has selected the 787 Dreamliner as a key element of its long-haul fleet renewal

What’s going on?

Leadership geeks may be tempted to see unfolding a story of strategic leadership. If so, it is a story which has to place leadership with a wide cast of strategic players. We may start by thinking of Willie Walsh as the dominant decision-maker in the story, with some billion pounds/dollars to invest in the future of his company.

The evidence of Mr Walsh’s leadership style suggests that he will have been very active in the processes building up to the decision, internal to British Airways. At present we can only speculate. However, the decision has enormous significance. It will impact on the travelling lives of millions of people some more directly than others. Arguably it will impact on the future of employees of Boeing, EADS, and a myriad of suppliers and sub-contractors including Rolls Royce who will supply the engines. At another level, the debate on political influence and subsidies to Airbus and Boeing continues to bubble away.

However charismatic and autocratic his leadership style, Walsh will have been flying in tricky conditions and with a chief pilot’s usual near-overload of advice and chatter. Advisors, and advisors of advisors will have examined assorted risk assessments from in and outside BA into which data will have been fed from numerous sources. Somewhere in these the influence of various governments and global institutions will have been factored in, as well as the much-publicised production delays at Airbus and more recently at Boeing for the A380 and B787 projects. Willie Walsh keeps sane by following what the great Herbert Simon called satisficing, or simplifying the decision through a set of personal mental filters.

In an avalanche of articles and books since the 1950s, Simon ..focused much of his attention on the issue of decision-making – and [developed his theory of ] “bounded rationality”. Agents, he claims, face uncertainty about the future and costs in acquiring information in the present. Thus .. they have only “bounded rationality” and are forced to make decisions not by “maximization” by “satisficing”, i.e. setting an aspiration level which, if achieved, they will be happy enough with, and if they don’t, try to change either their aspiration level or their decision.

I have taken the view that such processes are those which chess-players also have to make. In this chess-game, BA wants to avoid fixing the position, when there is much to be said for keeping options open. So the overall decision on replacing the fleet of aging 747 400s may or may not have been made. It makes sense to keep options open, even to the extent of splitting up the decision between the two giant contenders for the business. That is partly why decisions also involve options as well as firm commitments.

Those with a liking for logistics theory can debate the merits of smaller planes and P2P (point to point) strategy, and larger ones with a Hub-based strategy. Whatever.

A judicious mix of planes of differing size keeps both strategic options open. A judicious mix of ‘top-down’ leadership actions, and ‘data driven’ analysis may also be appropriate.

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Boeing, theater of dreams and Airbus nightmare

Boeing launches its much-awaited Dreamliner 787. For Airbus is must seem more like a nightmare. In this fantasy battle, their champion, the Airbus 380, appears to be as potent as Superman in Kryptonite underpants. Can the European aero-dream still turn out all right in the end?

In Seattle they build planes. And, at the moment they are also very much in the Hollywood territory of selling dreams. The fantasy object is the new Dreamliner. High-tech, high-flying, the i-phone of the skies, the flying apple of the mind’s eye.

Meanwhile, some six thousand miles to the East (well within the 8000 mile range of the Dreamliner), Airbus executives put a brave face on for the ceremonies.

The power of the dream

Who can doubt the power of the dream? Who knows what happens if we stop believing, as James Barrie reminds us in Peter Pan, and Terry Pratchett points out in The Hogfather.

The selling of the dream has been a signal success, with press release claims that the 787 is already the fastest-selling commercial airplane in history with over 600 orders valued at more $100 billion at current list prices.

Even those us immune to the romance of the tale know that the 787 is the next giant leap of a line of aircraft of great consequence in the history of civil aviation. The 707 was a first. The 747, affectionately known as the first Jumbo jet. Now the 787, the star in the theater of aero-dreams.

Airbus versus Boeing

From the American side of the Atlantic the battle is a no-contest. Here’s the view of Lance Winslow, a not totally unbiased correspondent assessing the Dreamliner against its most direct competitor the Airbus A-350

Is the A350 really that spectacular? Hard to say, but one thing is for certain it is certainly no match for the robust, daring and dashing Dreamliner of today. Airbus’s attempt to compete with the Free Market Boeing Company has once again earned itself a distant second place or last place in the battle for the sky. The A-350 will use the same fuselage as the A330, but the wings will be made of composite. This is hardly a reciprocal response to Boeing’s cutting edge technology and advancements in design. But we have come to expect mediocrity from Airbus. When flying do you really want to ride in a bus while traveling at 30,000 feet in the Air? Think about it.

The Free-Market Boeing versus EU-subsidized EADS is important issue which will continue to be brought into the debate. The article also gets to another the key factors in the argument, the technical merits of the competing products.

Meanwhile in Europe …

In Europe, the financial press is more preoccupied with the boardroom battles within EADS, the corporate parent of Airbus. The Financial Times suggests that the efforts to restructure its complicated dual-management structure appear to be centering on co-chief executive Tom Enders.

Mr Enders is a controversial figure in France after he publicly criticized political interference from Paris and suggested the possibility of sensitive asset disposals. However, Daimler, the core German industrial shareholder in EADS, is determined that Mr Enders should not be sacrificed in any final deal.

We will continue to follow the twists and turns of this board-room battle. My point here is that persistent stories of corporate infighting may be indicating that the overall position is highly unsatisfactory. Boeing, we may presume, is doing very nicely. So nicely, that there are few rumors of boardroom clashes. In contrast, EADS leadership is forced to attend to the battles over its international border disputes.

The Chequer Board

What if anything can EADS, and more specifically the larger part of the outfit which is Airbus, do to break out of its nightmare? Incidentally, a deadline is approaching (July 16th) which dragged the New French President into the battle.

Let me put a few pieces on the chessboard. Louis Gallois, head of Airbus, is widely admired, and believed to be needed to stick it at Airbus, and see though Power 8, the strategic plan to streamline the business. This is a production and commercial imperative. He is co-CEO of EADS with Tom Enders at present.

Arnaud Lagardère of the media group of the same name is French Co-chairman of EADS . His German co-chair is Rudiger Grube.

Nicholas Sarcozy and Angela Merkel are also in play, with special concerns for their national interests (and for their own political positions). EADS Shareholder DaimlerChrysler has signaled willingness to increase its holding, a positive gesture to Sarcozy who would like to reduce the holding of the French Government. DaimlerChryser’s bid is linked to their interests in keeping Tom Enders in play.

The rumors in the French press

Rumors suggest the game will involve taking Enders off the board. This has been denied emphatically by the company.

The current form of the EADS/Airbus nightmare will be shared more widely in Toulouse after this month’s summit meeting.