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Leahy: Toughing it out
01 July 2006
Sorry seems to be the hardest word for John Leahy, Airbus'
chief commercial officer. Alasdair Whyte finds out how testing the past 12 months have been.
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JOHN LEAHY; AIRBUS; SINGAPORE AIRLINES
Even his enemies – and there are a quite lot of them - can be forgiven for feeling sympathy for John Leahy, Airbus' chief commercial officer.
While many of his colleagues have been working hard to reduce engineering delays involved in building A380 aircraft, he has had the unenviable task of apologizing to the aircraft's customers for the second time in a year.
Leahy has just come back from visiting Singapore Airlines. He is tired and it is not all jetlag.
As well as the delays, in the past 12 months he has had to reassure customers about two new chief executive officers, BAE Systems' decision to sell its stake in the company and he has had to defend public criticism of the A350 from some of Airbus' best customers.
"This has definitely been the toughest year I have had at Airbus," says Leahy, who has been at the manufacturer for 21...
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