Airbus is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of civilian jet aircraft. Its headquarters are in southwestern France, near Toulouse. Manufacturing operations for Airbus in Europe are based in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The company also has a manufacturing plant in China. Airbus is a division of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).
European aircraft manufacturers organized Airbus in 1970 to enable them to compete with large manufacturers in the United States. At that time, Europe used 25 percent of the jets in the world, but it produced only 10 percent. Rather than continue to compete against one another, manufacturers in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom agreed to share development costs in an effort to increase European production and sales of aircraft. The French, German, and Spanish manufacturers merged in 1999 to form EADS.
Airbus at first concentrated on developing short- to medium-range twin-engine widebody jet aircraft for 250 to 300 passengers. The first Airbus planes went into service for Air France (now part of Air France-KLM) in 1974. Today, Airbus produces a range of single-aisle and widebody aircraft. The company developed the largest passenger airliner, the A380, which could carry up to 840 pasengers. Delays in delivery of the A380, originally due out in 2005, caused serious financial problems for Airbus. The A380 entered service in 2007. In 2019, Airbus announced it would end production of the A380 in 2021 due to poor sales of the aircraft.
