If you were still wondering whether a public/private, multinational, politically involved and massively subsidized company could succeed in today's marketplace, then you clearly haven't been paying attention to the latest round of astonishing developments by Airbus Industrie. The consortium announced on October 3 that its heralded A380 double-decker, super-jumbo aircraft would be delayed another year. Now, deliveries that should have taken place this year, if nothing else interferes, will take place in late 2008. The world's largest plane could hold up to 800 passengers depending on its configuration and if its every finished. Signatory customers like Emirates Airlines and Air France/KLM have expressed disappointment and frustration with the process, with the former threatening to reevaluate its $13 billion, 43-plane purchasing contract on the news. Airbus blamed the difficulties of installing the miles of wiring onto the planes for the delay. In reality, Airbus has been caught in a systemic storm of its own making. EADS, the majority shareowner of Airbus that formed in 2000 from German, French and Spanish interests, has one of the most complicated ownership structures imaginable. DaimlerChrysler owns some, Sogeade owns some, Spanish SEPI owns some, and the rest is publicly traded. Add to this a minority ownership by Britain's BAE systems and the fact that the consortium has two CEOs (one German and one French - both of whom get along just fine, really) and manufacturing facilities throughout Europe and the British Isles (resulting in increased goodwill as well as astronomical transport costs) and you have a flow chart even and HOD major can't comprehend. The costs of these setbacks are estimated at nearly $3 billion over the next four years for Airbus, which has recently been loosing ground to Boeing. While Airbus was reinventing a wheel that only a few Airlines could afford or even had the need for, Boeing spent its considerably smaller and non-subsidized (though the Europeans may disagree) research and development funds on an entirely different type of mid-to-long range, midsized aircraft: the 787 Dreamliner. Despite its cheesy moniker, the 787 will feature increased cabin humidity, larger windows, and more comfortable seating along with lighter materials and more fuel-efficient engines, both of which make the aircraft far less costly to operate. Due to its costly delays with the A380, Airbus has postponed another costly yet important project, the redesign of its lackluster A350 midsized aircraft in hopes of competing with the 787 (named the A350 XWB for extra-wide body). If Airbus is lucky, this project should only cost $10 billion with its first deliveries coming no earlier than 2012. Airbus seems to be caught up in a cycle known crudely as having “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” With pressure from the governments of Spain, France, Germany, and Britain along with the EU and its massive bureaucracy, the WTO, other nations which have Airbus manufacturing plants like Ireland, and its customers, there is no wonder why the consortium is unraveling at its seams (its many, many seams). New Airbus CEO Christian Streiff recently told CNN that "We are learning to be humble and change our bad habits . . . Airbus is in the middle of a serious crisis with our customers." A crisis, indeed. The marvel of European innovation, a consortium created to combine all of Europe's resources into one unstoppable engine of productivity and ingenuity, is at risk of folding completely. Airbus tried to be too many things to too many people, and it's failing miserably at nearly all of them while its top brass manage to take a nice handful of Eurocents for their own pockets. EADS and Airbus will likely continue to be subsidized back into consciousness, though likely not back to any meaningful success, partially proving that trying to jointly circumvent the capitalist system of today's world marketplace rarely, if ever, succeeds.