The French government made concessions, such as the partial privatisations of Aerospatiale and the Thomson electronics group.

ECONOMIST: European aerospace

They have been having talks with Aerospatiale, one of the Airbus partners, about how to form an alliance.

ECONOMIST: Transatlantic aerobatics

The other members of the Airbus consortium, France's Aerospatiale, Germany's Dasa, and Spain's Casa would also have a key role in construction.

BBC: Development of the A3xx would be expensive

Leading European companies (including Aerospatiale, Westland, and MBB) have teamed together to form an organization called Eurofar for the purpose of developing and marketing a tiltrotor aircraft for commercial and military markets.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

"The greatest obstacle is the refusal by the aircraft's manufacturer -- formerly British Aerospace-Aerospatiale, now Airbus -- to lend its support to a restoration, " said aviation journalist David Kaminski-Morrow, air transport editor of Flightglobal.com.

CNN: Can plan to fly Concorde again get off the ground?