Airbus
Airbus ( /ˈɛərbʌs/, ) is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, an European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, a suburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces approximately half of the world's jet airliners.
Airbus began as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers, Airbus Industrie. Consolidation of European defence and aerospace companies in 1999 and 2000 allowed the establishment of a simplified joint-stock company in 2001, owned by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). After a protracted sales process BAE sold its shareholding to EADS on 13 October 2006.
Airbus employs around 63,000 people at sixteen sites in four European Union countries: France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain. Final assembly production is based at Toulouse, France; Hamburg, Germany; Seville, Spain; and, since 2009, Tianjin, China. Airbus has subsidiaries in the United States, Japan, China and India.
The company produced and markets the first commercially viable fly-by-wire airliner, the Airbus A320, and the world's largest airliner, the A380.
Read more about Airbus: Civilian Products, Military Products, Orders and Deliveries, Competition With Boeing, International Manufacturing Presence, Environmental Record, Export Credits, Airbus Aircraft Numbering System