It is May 29, 2019, which means it Airbus is 50 years old today. A small project that begun at the Paris Airshow in 1969 on this date, when Germany and France decided to pool their aviation expertise and resources, was later joined in by Spain and the UK, to creating a duopoly in the global aviation business. Until the emergence of Airbus, aviation was dominated by American companies such as Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas.

Airbus, from the first day, was a lot about differentiating itself from the existing players in the market. After all, independent attempts from Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and others were getting them nowhere to be competing on the global scenario after World War 2.

For starts, Airbus made the world’s first widebody twin-engined jet, the A300. At the time, the Boeing 747 was flying, which was a four-engined aircraft, and there was the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, which was a triple-engine jet. By cutting off an engine, or two, the aircraft became lighter and more fuel efficient. While the A300 family had a slow start, and it went down to the A250 and then became the A250B, eventually over 550 A300 family aircraft were produced before production shut in 2007.

Airbus also started with the other great thing in aviation history, dispersed production across the Airbus sites across Europe. The workshare, as it was called back in the day, was necessitated by the fact that Airbus was owned by four different government. So, work was divided amongst the sites as per the ownership structure, and hence the aviation experience from various nations was pooled in, rather than have it all at one place. Till date, this system has held Airbus in good stead. The wings are built in the UK, the cockpit and the front fuselage in Toulouse, other parts of the fuselage in Germany and Spain works on the tail and rudders. Fun fact, the forward doors on the A320 are manufactured in India.

Oh, and the fun part that comes with this scattered production model is that Airbus works with aircraft such as the Beluga and the Beluga XL, which transport parts every day from one facility to another. Bonus, the Beluga XL is cute with the smiling face.

The need to change things up also helped Airbus make the most significant shift in terms of technology for flying aircraft. Airbus, with their workhorse, the A320, shifted to a sidestick control, instead of the yoke, which would give more control to the computers to calculate and effect the control surface deflections for the pilot. By being able to successfully commercialise fly-by-wire, as it is called today, Airbus was able to also introduce flight envelope protection, which helps by preventing the pilots from outmanoeuvring the aircraft’s performance limits, given a computer is watching over. Not just that, Airbus was also able to move to a common cockpit approach, where a pilot familiar with how the Airbus cockpit operates could fly another airframe from the Airbus family as well.

Unfortunately for Airbus, the Airbus A380, which has been one of their newer products, did not take life as well as they hoped, with Airbus slated to shut production in the coming years for lack of orders. Airbus created a massively distinctive brand around the A380, and excellent passenger experience, enough for passengers to want to fly the A380 over any other aircraft when available. The space from the A380 also allowed airlines to create products for this aircraft, which were never thought of possible before. For instance, the Emirates lounge at the back of the plane and the Etihad Residence in the front of the aircraft. The showers and the Suites onboard Singapore Airlines. All made possible by the space and design of the A380.

And let’s not forget the daily contribution to our lives, the 18″ broad Economy class seat, with Boeing’s standard being the 17″ wide seat.

Happy 50th Airbus! Here is to the next 50!