All together : The European aerospace industry that will present at this year's Paris air show has completely transformed itself over the last decade.

Publication: Airline Business

Publication Date: 04-JUN-01

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Reed Business Information Ltd.

All industries undergo change, but in the aerospace sector the last five years have seen revolution replace evolution. A frenzy of merger activity has witnessed old rivals combining forces, familiar names being swept away and established companies propelling themselves into new and unfamiliar activities.

This transformation began in the USA, but in recent times it has been most marked in Europe, where governments and major aerospace players have responded to the pace of change across the Atlantic by embracing a wholesale restructuring of their own.

So complete has been this upheaval that on view at this month's Paris air show will be a European aerospace landscape almost unrecognisable from that of only a few years ago. Gone are the old "national" champions such as British Aerospace in the UK, Aerospatiale and Thomson-CSF of France or DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Dasa) of Germany, to be replaced by new pan-national behemoths able to rival the US giants in size (see table on page 104).

This transformation had its origins in the end of the Cold War, which led to a collapse in defence spending and made a thinning of the supplier base inevitable. At the same time, the capital costs of military programmes have continued to increase,...

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