Competitive Assessment of the U.S. Large Civil Aircraft Aerostructures Industry

The LCA aerostructures industry is truly global, with manufacturers from all parts of the world supplying the two major remaining LCA producers, The Boeing Co. of the United States and the former Airbus Industrie, G.I.E. of France. Airbus is in the final stages of its transformation to a single corporate entity and was recently renamed 'The Airbus Company.' For the purposes of this investigation, aerostructures are structural assemblies, primarily constructed of aluminum, titanium, and composite materials, that house passengers, crew, and cargo of an LCA, dictate the aircraft attitude, and support the aircraft on the ground. The leading LCA aerostructures industries in the world in terms of volume of production and breadth of product line are in the United States and Europe. The industries in Canada and Asia are somewhat smaller. The global industry is undergoing a process of consolidation, necessitated by the trend toward increased responsibility imposed on aerostructures producers by the LCA manufacturers, and cost reduction pressures