airbus

Airbus Industrie is a company that makes airliners and (mostly) civil cargo planes. Most notable for making the A380, the largest production airliner as of 2005. Airbus components are often made in seperate countries hundreds of miles apart and pieces must be flown in to an assembly plant. New airbuses are chock full of modern gadgets such as glass cockpits, joystick controls, and composite materials. Boeing is Airbus's primary competitor. Airbus is purportedly an icon of international participation but is really a french company with subsidiaries around the european union. It's popular with bean counters, passengers and francophiles, but unpopular with many maintinance crews, pilots, "purists," and francophobes. The jury is still out on long-term engineering quality, but in any case, their airliners don't quite have the character of Boeings.