Airbus reaffirms A400M flight, shuffles jobs

European planemaker Airbus reaffirmed plans to get the delayed A400M military transport plane flying by the end of the year as it announced a raft of management changes at its military division on Tuesday. The changes include the appointment of a new engineering chief - described as "Mr Tanker" by one industry source - after a storm over A400M costs and delays, which contrasts with relatively smoother developments of Airbus refuelling tankers.
It is the widest shake-up of the team running efforts by Airbus to diversify away from civil plane production since parent EADS brought in Airbus's restructuring chief Domingo Urena to run the troubled military division in February. Miguel Angel Morell, Urena's new head of engineering and technology, previously led efforts by Airbus to develop in-flight refuelling planes converted from A330 passenger jets.