Airbus CEO Enders to Take Control of Plane Sales In New Shake-Up

Exclusive: Airbus CEO Enders to Take Control of Plane Sales In New Shake-Up (excerpt)

PARIS --- Airbus is launching a reorganization of its commercial aircraft sales operations in a move likely to focus fresh attention on a delicate balance of power at Europe's largest aerospace company, people familiar with the situation said.

From July, the globe-trotting sales team, best known for contesting leadership of the jetliner market with Boeing, will report directly to Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders, bypassing commercial aircraft president Fabrice Bregier, the people said.

A spokesman for Airbus declined to comment.

The surprise move, announced at a management dinner on Thursday, is part of a wider effort to streamline the company by uniting the headquarters with its dominant civil planemaking business, giving substance to a recent internal merger.

But it is likely to raise questions about the coherence of the commercial planemaking operations and could revive speculation over the future of Frenchman Bregier, who has run the world's second-largest civil planemaker since 2012.

The issue is not one of differing strategies, but the way responsibility is divided inside a company straining to keep a lid on tensions amid recent industrial and regulatory problems.

Absorbing commercial sales, the powerful driver of Airbus's growth in past decades, will strengthen German-born Enders' grip on civil operations, which provide 74 percent of revenue. (end of excerpt)

Click here for the full story, on the Reuters website.

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