Airbus in Boeing's Supply Chain?

Filed in archive Point of view on October 20, 2005

I read this interesting story in Seattle Times about a Canadian company half-owned by Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence & Space (EADS) that will supply a small part on the new jet directly to Boeing.

Composites Atlantic, headquartered in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, will produce a brace that helps attach the pylon to the 787 wing. The pylon is the structural part from which the engine hangs.

For the first time on a commercial jet, the 787 pylon brace will be made from composites rather than aluminium to reduce weight.

Well, I'm not much into Airplane industry but when I read the story, I thought that maybe airplane industry is going in the same direction as auto industry is heading right now, like part of the innovation in design occurs at the supplier side and supply chains of the competitors are becoming interrelated. At the end, maybe it's just the brand, price and physical shape that are different, but inner parts and the major product technologies are the same. And that's beginning of the automobilization of the airplane industry. What do you think?