Paris – European defense group EADS vowed Monday to put Franco-German management tensions behind it and resolve the crisis at Airbus, the day after the French chief executive and the civil jet unit’s German head lost their jobs in a much-anticipated shake-up.
“We’ll work hard … to bring EADS back on course,” Louis Gallois, former co-CEO Noel Forgeard’s replacement, said in a joint statement with German co-CEO Tom Enders, who survived the reshuffle.
Politicians and trade unions welcomed the changes at EADS, in which Airbus CEO Gustav Humbert was also forced to step down.
EADS owns 80 percent of Airbus and had been called in to arbitrate after Britain’s BAE Systems, which owns the remaining 20 percent, exercised an option to sell the stake to EADS and the two failed to agree on a price.
