Aviation Week | By: Jerrold T. Lundquist | October 18, 2017:

Industries evolve much like nature in the form of “punctuated evolution.” Things stay at status quo for long periods, and then an external event—an asteroid impact, food shortage or new predator arrival—fundamentally alters the landscape. The result is a daisy chain of action and reaction in short succession that leaves a new order of dominance, extinction and relationships.

Such was the “Last Supper,” which presaged the consolidation of the U.S. defense industry in the 1990s due to severe budget cutbacks, and the announcement on Oct. 16 that Airbus will acquire a 50.01% stake in the C Series Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP), which originated two years ago when the Quebec provincial government provided a lifeline investment into the then-struggling Bombardier program.

The Airbus relationship will be that of a commercial marketing and support arrangement with eventual production being added in Mobile, Alabama, which would add U.S. jobs and potentially make C Series aircraft U.S. products under trade rules.

But far more than an add-on to a product line, the arrangement creates alliances in a fragmented industry structure between super-OEMs, regional aircraft OEMs, supplier integrators and airline customers, not to mention national actors controlling funding, infrastructure and trade agreements.

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Image Credit:
Photo – C-Series Aircraft – By Yan Gouger (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

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