The Inside Story: How American Airlines Killed Airbus A350 Deal With A Single Brutal Line

The Inside Story: How American Airlines Killed Airbus A350 Deal With A Single Brutal Line


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The Inside Story: How American Airlines Killed Airbus A350 Deal With A Single Brutal Line

Brian Sumers, in his excellent subscription newsletter interviewed former American Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja and passed along a story about Vasu – and American cancelling its order for Airbus A350 widebody aircraft – that I hadn’t heard before. Usually complex large supplier relationships are handled diplomatically. Not so with Vasu.

Raja, then a vice president, abruptly told Airbus senior management that the airline did not want to take any Airbus A350s. Airbus executives were shocked, my source told me, because American’s deal, which it inherited from long-time Airbus customer US Airways, meant the airline could take the airplanes at an insanely cheap price. How could American not want the planes?

“Vasu out of nowhere deadpans and looks at them and says, ‘You know what, let me explain it to you this way. You are selling a great lawn mower. Actually, you’re giving it away for free. Here is the problem. I live in a high-rise penthouse.’”

Sumers added that “No other mid-level executive, my source said, would use language like that in a business deal with Airbus” given how “buttoned-up” American Airlines is. That was true in the per-merger days for sure. In 2012 the airline once begged me not to use a photo of one of their vice presidents wearing a pants suit. But the culture changed and so Vasu was unleashed. He became known for his non-stop F-bombs.

American Airlines did take delivery of an A350 simulator, and mostly rented out time on the sim to Delta.

This may be my second favorite ‘airline meeting with Airbus’ story, behind the time in the 90’s that the Chinese thought Airbus sold buses to bring passengers from airport terminals out to remote stands.

[Airbus Chief Operating Officer John] Leahy and his team explained the structure of Airbus and discussed the Airbus forecast for Chinese aviation. When the meeting ended in exactly 60 minutes, the Chinese airline chairman, through the translator, thanked Leahy for his visit, but said they wouldn’t need his product. You see, Leahy was told, the airline was installing jetways and no longer needed buses to move passengers.

Of course American Airlines ordered the A321XLR and then earlier this year more A321neos. Telling off Airbus about their widebody product didn’t create an insurmountable hurdle in the business relationship.



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