Business / Technology

Tom Enders, the German former paratrooper who leads Airbus, loves to make a splash.

To show off the qualities of a military airlifter, he dived off the loading ramp at 10,000 feet. Disapproval of Germany's abstention from the Libyan liberation campaign led Enders, 53, to quit Angela Merkel's political party. Last year, he quipped that Boeing executives might be a bunch of dopeheads.

The take-no-prisoners approach risks putting Enders, who was named last week to lead Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space (EADS), on a collision course with government shareholders. His challenge will be to harmonize disparate aviation and defense assets stitched together a decade ago, while answering to investors dominated by the industrial interests of Germany, France and Spain.

"Enders is hard-boiled, no doubt about that," said Michael Fuchs, the chief economy parliamentary spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democratic Party. "He's a straight-talker who sometimes ruffles feathers, and he needs to be like that, to steer a ship between politics and a very complex business."

Louis Gallois, who is retiring later this year, made his mark as a troubleshooter for the French state, using diplomacy and often humor to ease conflicts at Europe's biggest aerospace company. Gallois took the helm after EADS was rocked by multiple delays and cost overruns on the A380 double-decker that forced out his predecessor, Noel Forgeard, and depressed the stock price.

Together with Gallois, Enders stabilized the A380 program and gradually increased output while cutting costs. The effort paid off for shareholders. EADS stock has risen 8.6 percent in the last five years, compared with a 25 percent drop for Boeing.

For Enders, the U.S. remains a frontier with major growth potential, as EADS gets less than 3 percent of non-Airbus revenues in that country. Airbus only assembles aircraft in France, Germany and China. A fourth line would help smooth out currency swings and provide additional capacity needed as Airbus seeks to further boost production of its A320.

"That's one of their key challenges, setting up a production base for Airbus in the U.S.," said Emmanuel Soupre, who helps manage about $15.6 billion at Neuflize OBC in Paris. "Doing that for Airbus would help them better hedge between dollar-based sales and production costs."

Enders inherits a company more dominated by government interest than at any point in its 12-year existence. Germany took on a larger role in November when it committed to purchasing a 7.5 percent stake from carmaker Daimler, a move Enders derided as overbearing state involvement. France owns a 15 percent direct stake in EADS, which is based in Paris and Munich.

Beyond the constraints of government ownership, EADS has kept voting control largely to Daimler and publisher Lagardere SCA, which also votes for the French government share. The Spanish state has a 5.44 percent voting stake.

Since its inception, EADS has suffered from the image as the industrial puppet of government interest. A years-long spat between the U.S. and Europe on aircraft subsidies that continues today left Airbus scrambling to fight off the stigma of a company propped up by state finances.

U.S. lawmakers cried foul when EADS sought to sell refueling aircraft to the U.S. Air Force. The multibillion-dollar contract went to Boeing last year, blasting EADS' goal to build a beachhead in the U.S.

After the tanker defeat, Enders may seek fresh avenues to build up EADS in the U.S., the world's biggest military market and still the largest national market for commercial aircraft. Airbus scored a key victory last year when American Airlines agreed to buy A320 single-aisle aircraft, the first time in decades that it opted for the European company.

While Enders used his leadership skills at Airbus to get struggling production programs back on track, his tactics have alienated government allies. Months-long negotiations over the A400M military airlifter so irritated then-German Defense Minister Theodor zu Guttenberg that the politician snubbed Airbus at the aircraft's German maiden flight in 2010.

In the end Enders, aided by Gallois, got the additional financing he needed to continue with the A400M, the most expensive military program in postwar Europe. The price he paid was a political class unhappy over his gung-ho maneuvering.

Enders can afford a dose of self-confidence because of his Airbus track record. When he took over, the A380 was running two and half years late, mired in production woes stemming from previous management's failure to harmonize German and French engineering teams around one design tool.

Under Enders, Airbus reorganized production. It rose from producing just one plane in 2007 to 26 in 2010, with 30 planned for this year. By 2015, Airbus wants to break even on the A380.

His biggest victory yet was the introduction of an upgraded version of the best-selling A320 single-aisle jet at the end of 2010. Enders took his time studying possible manufacturing bottlenecks and costs to the project before giving the go-ahead at the end of 2010, only to watch the program turn into the fastest-selling jet in aviation history.

The success of the A320neo, as the new variant is called, put pressure on Boeing to follow suit with its competing 737. When Airbus raked in hundreds of orders at the Paris Air Show last year for the A320neo and Boeing stood on the sidelines, Enders took the stage at the show and asked the audience "what are they smoking at Boeing?" to be so slow in responding.

Airbus' open flank remains the A350 program, a composite-plastic aircraft scheduled to enter service in mid-2014 as a competitor to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the popular 777 widebody jet. Enders has described design and manufacturing of the jet as a "hellish ride," and Airbus twice has pushed back entry-into-service dates of the most popular variant.

"I've been impressed with what happened under Enders at Airbus," said Neuflize OBC's Soupre. "He got along remarkably well with Gallois, and one got the feeling that it wasn't an individual at the head of EADS or Airbus, it was a management task force. I imagine it'll continue like that."