Almost A Failure: How Airbus Nearly Didn’t Happen

Watch over 2,400 documentaries for free for a month by signing up at: and using the code “mustard” at checkout. In 1974, Boeing vice president Jim Austin described the Airbus A300 as “a typical government airplane” of which “they’ll build a dozen or so and then go out of business.” He wasn’t alone in his criticism. And he was almost right. Airbus began a decade earlier as an ambitious effort to stop the Americans from completely taking over the global aviation industry.