Airbus, the European aircraft maker, fears its chances of winning a multibillion-dollar Pentagon contract could be damaged by a six-month delay in the issuance of a crucial World Trade Organisation report on its US rival Boeing.
The report's delay is inflaming longstanding tensions between the two rival aircraft manufacturers, whose governments have been locked in a dispute in the WTO over allegations of subsidies.
“This stinks to high heaven,” said an Airbus employee familiar with the matter after hearing late last week that the WTO does not plan to release its interim report until June 2010 on Brussels' claims that the US has granted “massive subsidies” to Boeing. Washington and Brussels each accused the other of illegally subsidising their respective aircraft makers in October 2004, with each case being handled by a separate WTO panel. The one hearing the US claim against Airbus handed down its draft report in September.