Airbus to outsource $3.5bn worth of work

Airbus is proposing to farm out an estimated $3.5bn worth of work on its proposed A350XWB airliner in an effort to reduce the overall development costs for its Franco-German parent EADS. Senior executives at the European aircraft group told the Financial Times that the company intended to increase the proportion of outsourcing on the airframe from about 30 per cent to close to 50 per cent. EADS has estimated that the A350XWB, Airbus’s response to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, will cost $12bn or more to develop, and is expected to decide whether to press ahead with the project before the end of 2006.