Nineteen ninety-three was a mere five days old when Boeing and Deutsche Aerospace, a member of the Airbus consortium, dropped a bombshell on the aviation industry. To everyone’s amazement, Boeing’s UHCA project manager John Hayhurst and DASA chairman Jürgen Schrempp announced on January 5 that the two were joining forces on a UHCA or very large commercial transport (VLCT) feasibility study. Acting on contacts first made at the Farnborough Air Show the previous September, Schrempp and DASA aircraft group leader Hartmut Mehdorn had followed up with a visit to Boeing in late 1992. But the announcement posed far more questions than answers, the biggest question being whether or not Airbus itself was involved in the feasibility study.
As far as Airbus chairman Jean Pierson was concerned, the European consortium had already played a direct role. Speaking at the annual Airbus results conference in Paris early that January, Pierson declared that initial discussions had taken place at Farnborough between himself, Schrempp, and Hayhurst, and that at the end of the month the Airbus board was due to review a discussion document that the meeting had sparked.
However, the journalists at the meeting had also listened to the Boeing/DASA press briefing only a few days before and asked why Hayhurst had made no reference to Airbus. Pierson replied that, “either he does not remember me, which is impolite, or he has a short memory, which disqualifies him from being a project manager, or he’s having second thoughts. I think it’s more likely he’s having second thoughts.”
In making such a statement, Pierson indirectly admitted that Airbus had not been invited to participate in the VLCT study, even though one and possibly more of its members had. Pierson was adamant, however, that the move did not threaten to undermine Airbus or the consortium’s continuing aircraft studies or those being conducted with the consortium’s members. “There has been no betrayal by an Airbus member. This is not the end of the Airbus system,” Pierson strongly reiterated.