Strikes and protests greeted the European planemaker's long-awaited announcement that it intends to shed 10,000 staff and sell, close or spin off six plants, as it struggles to survive the crippling fallout from a two-year delay to its A380 superjumbo and the weaker U.S. dollar.  "We are doing what other companies have done, but we're a bit late," Airbus Chief Executive Louis Gallois said as he presented the "Power8" restructuring strategy to reporters.  Airbus will sell off or shut down its French Saint-Nazaire-Ville plant and two German sites _ Varel and Laupheim _ as the company increasingly outsources "non-core" parts, Gallois said. Together, the three facilities currently employ over 3,000 workers.  Gallois is also seeking partners to back a belated push into carbon-fiber composite technologies by investing in three other Airbus sites that produce fuselage and wing parts: Meaulte in northern France, Nordenham in Germany and Filton in Britain.  The new partners will "partially or totally take control of the sites," Gallois said, under long-term production agreements set to transform the Airbus facilities into a new network of "tier-one suppliers."  Airbus said in a statement that it already received "unsolicited proposals" from would-be investors. Britain's GKN PLC, Italy's Finmeccanica SpA and U.S.-based Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. are among potential partners, Airbus Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier also said.  Over four years, Airbus said it plans to shed 4,300 jobs in France, 3,700 in Germany, 1,600 in Britain and 400 in Spain _ with roughly half the cuts coming from its 57,000-strong Airbus work force and the rest from subcontractors, who currently employ a further 30,000 staff.  The company said it will seek to avoid layoffs by using voluntary schemes such as early retirement, but made no promises. "Should these schemes not generate the expected level of reductions within the next 12 to 18 months, other measures will have to be considered," Airbus said.  The shake-up announced Wednesday echoed changes at Boeing from late 2001, when the Chicago-based company began the long process of slashing 40,000 jobs and outsourcing production after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. But European labor laws could make the challenge tougher for Airbus, analysts say.  "It's going to be a difficult task," said Paul Nisbet of U.S.-based JSA Research.  Unlike the Boeing cutbacks, which coincided with a lull in orders, the Airbus restructuring comes just as the European planemaker is "approaching its maximum output, which complicates things as well," Nisbet said.  Airbus parent company EADS announced Wednesday that it will take a 680 million euro ($900 million) first-quarter charge to reflect restructuring costs at Airbus, its largest division. Shares of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. rose 46 euro cents (61 cents), or 1.8 percent, to close at 25.91 euros ($34.23) in Paris.  Protests and strikes that had begun at French Airbus plants on the eve of the announcement gathered pace and spread across the German border Wednesday, as workers vented their anger at the cutbacks and selloffs.  "We won't stand idly by, watching as our site is sold off piecemeal," said Michael Braun, an IG Metall union official at the Laupheim plant earmarked for sale or closure. The German union announced further industrial action for Thursday.  Originally promised last year after the A380's two-year delay wiped 5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) off profit forecasts for 2006-2010, the Power8 turnaround plan aims to claw back the same figure in cost reductions over the period and generate 2.1 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in annual savings in later years.  Airbus has been badly hit by the U.S. dollar's weakness against the euro. "We cannot continue to produce at our current euro costs and sell at Boeing's dollar prices," said CEO Gallois, who is also co-chief executive of EADS.  Toulouse, France-based Airbus also has to fund development of the A350, its 11.6 billion euros ($15.3 billion) answer to the runaway success of U.S. rival Boeing Co.'s 787 in the lucrative market for long-range, mid-sized planes.  A mid-sized hole in the Airbus product line blamed for a slump in orders allowed Boeing to win more orders last year for the first time since 2000. Airbus' share of new business fell to 38 percent by catalog value, from 45 percent in 2005 and 54 percent in 2004. The slide means that Airbus is likely to fall behind on deliveries in 2008 or 2009.  Final assembly of the A350 will be based exclusively in France, Gallois also announced Wednesday _ instead of being split between Germany and France as programs traditionally have been. In return, a third A320 final assembly line will be opened in Germany and a future revamp of the popular single-aisle jet will be assembled in Hamburg.  Airbus had been forced to postpone the restructuring announcement, originally scheduled last week, and propose changes to the plan after core German shareholder DaimlerChrysler AG blocked the plan at a Feb. 18 board meeting, citing concerns over the distribution of job cuts and new technologies between France and Germany.  National rivalries still have to be overcome, Gallois warned Wednesday, as he announced that Airbus HQ will take over accounting and human resources roles from national divisions. "We are fighting against history to create one Airbus," he said.  Associated Press Writers Audrey Sommazi in Toulouse, Matt Moore in Frankfurt and David Carpenter in Chicago contributed to this report.
PARIS -- Airbus, steadily losing its market lead to Boeing Co., unveiled drastic plans Wednesday to follow in its U.S. rival's footsteps by cutting thousands of jobs, selling off manufacturing sites and outsourcing more work to external suppliers.