But the contract with Emirates Airlines announced during the Berlin Air Show is even bigger.
No Hintergedanken (ulterior motives) here or anything, though.
Dubai’s Emirates Airline ordered 32 additional Airbus A380 superjumbo jetliners, and deliberately announced the $11.5 billion deal in Germany’s capital to fight a trade battle with flag carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
Emirates, which had already ordered 58 of the world’s largest passenger plane, wants Berlin to grant it greater access to the huge German aviation market. Lufthansa argues that its home market of 80 million people shouldn’t be thrown open to a carrier from one of the United Arab Emirates. Dubai has a population of roughly 3.5 million people. Carriers from the UAE may now serve at most four German cities.
Erst 2015 sollen die Produktionskosten so weit gesenkt sein, dass der Flieger Gewinn abwirft. Im Klartext: Die meisten der 32 an Emirates verkauften Maschinen werden Airbus einen Verlust bescheren.
Observing Hermann 
I have largely found my views on free trade largely out of step with the average German. “Dirk Durschsnitt” has never really been told how freeing markets could lead to more foreign investment and more job opportunities at home. Instead, the zero-sum game of economics prevails and any money made by a foreign company here is seen as money that Germans will eventually not get. If national EU gems are viciously guarded from other EU member states, how would they ever allow outsiders to operate very freely either?
As for the A380, I’ve seen a couple before. I’m sure the management of EADS is at least happy about the sinking Euro.
Actually, German companies largely make their -profit margins- abroad. That said, should the Red-linke-green take over, they may wreck Germany’s single advantage in europe which is high productivity, thus low-wage to output.
Otherwise, I have no idea how they could have landed an A380 at Tempelhof.
True, Joe. But no, it was at Schönefeld (soon to be BBI – Berlin Brandenburg International) and I don’t know how the hell they landed it there. That puppy is BIG.
Yes, indeed. Germany has had a great run inside of the EU in the past few years. (Great should certainly be seen in relative terms.) I may be wrong, but I believe the last figure I saw quoted was that around 75% of German exports went to other EU states, and slightly less than 50% of GDP depends on exports. A lot of these exports were bought by southern Europeans on credit. At any rate, it looks like Germany’s export based model is in trouble if they can’t diversify.
As per your statement, German consumption has been weak for quite a while now. Any attempts to address this internal EU trade imbalance has been met with resistance from Germany. This also means that German companies will not be able to expand rapidly if they depend on (practically non-existent) domestic consumption.
Yeah. On the one hand it’s counterintuitive – spending money that you don’t have to get out of the problem you created by spending money you didn’t have – so the Germans don’t/won’t, I understand that. But on the other hand they don’t mind it when everybody else “out there” does the spending for them and buy their exports. Is there a contradiction here somewhere – and does anybody care?