Headline: Britain loans Airbus £340m to safeguard jobs
Government loans plane maker £340m to develop wide-body A350, securing 1,200 jobs at British plants.
Britain follows France and Germany, which have offered €1.4bn (£1.2bn) and €1.1bn respectively in launch aid for the A350. Of the Government’s previous £1.2bn investments in Airbus, they have made a return of £1.6bn, according to the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, headed by Lord Mandelson.---------------
The latest "investment" works out to £28,333 ($40,214) per employee.
The British taxpayer will be investing at the current rate of exchange, £340m = $561,965,644. US dollars.
The £340m represents nearly half of the £750m Strategic Investment Fund intended to help the UK economy recover from the recession.
While the British have approved the loan, Germany hasn't actually agreed on the money. They're still negotiating and they need "clearance to spend the money from the German budget committee."
The WXB is a redesign of the much-criticized Airbus 350. Wikipedia entry.
The XWB will impose a couple of years of delay into the original timetable and almost double development costs from $5.3 billion to approximately $10 billion.
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