2017考博英语阅读题源经济学人文章每日精析（四）

2017考博英语阅读题源经济学人文章每日精析（四）

　　考博英语阅读大部分博士研究生招生院校都使用《经济学人》杂志文章作为题源，新东方在线考博频道为考博生们将其中的文章进行深度分析，希望能提高大家的考博英语阅读水平，读懂长难句。

　　Airbus空中客车公司

　　Information信息

　　Europe’s big planemaker takes another short hop towards being a “normal” firm

　　欧洲大型飞机制造商另辟蹊径向“平民公司”转型

　　Oct 8th 2016 | From the print edition2016年10月8日|印刷版

　　The A380 rarely flies economy

　　A380几乎不飞经济航班

　　TEN years ago this September Airbus’s first A380 superjumbo, laden with passengers, took to the skies over Toulouse. Airbus’s bosses hoped that the world’s largest jetliner, the first with two full decks, would help the European planemaker get even with its American rival, Boeing. But problems quickly mounted. In October 2006 Airbus revealed the third delay to the A380 programme. Development costs spiralled out of control, to $15 billion; three chief executives lost their jobs in succession that year.

　　十年前的九月，第一架载满乘客的巨无霸空中客机A380在图卢兹直冲云霄。当时，空中客机的老板们希望这架空前的世界上最大的双层客机能够帮助欧洲的飞机制造商向美国的波音飞机讨回颜面。但是，问题很快暴露出来了。2006年10月，空中客机公司第三次推迟了A380航班的计划。开发成本完全超出预算，甚至高达150亿美元;同年，三位首席执行官因此接连丢掉了他们的工作。

　　Superjumbo：巨无霸get even with：向……报复

　　The trauma prompted a sweeping modernisation effort that went further on September 30th with a restructuring announcement by Tom Enders, Airbus Group’s chief executive. The company began as a jumble of the national aerospace firms of France, Germany, Britain and Spain, jointly known as EADS, in 1967. Mr Enders has laboured, with much success, to reduce state influence on the group and to create a profit-driven firm like any other. But the roots of the past run deep. Airbus Group sits at the top of three divisions—jetliners, defence and space, and helicopters. The jetliner division, for example, still thinks of itself as French in character, and the defence and space unit keeps some sense of its former German identity.

　　这次挫折推动了一次彻底的现代化尝试，在同年9月30号空中客机的首席执行官汤姆-恩德斯进一步作出了重建的宣告。这家公司最初是由法国、德国、英国和西班牙的航空公司在1967年组建起来的联合公司，即人们所熟知的EADS。大获成功的恩德斯先生一直努力尝试减少国家对公司的影响同时创造一个和其他一样受利益驱使的公司。但是，过去的渊源深深地影响着公司运转。空中客机公司分为三个核心部门—喷气客机，国防和太空技术，以及直升机。例如，喷气客机部门依然会认为自己特点上属于法国的，而国防和太空技术部门则保有一定自己之前的德国特征。

　　Trauma：损伤;挫折Sweeping：彻底的;影响广泛的Jumble：杂乱的一堆

　　Now the top entity, Airbus Group, headed by Mr Enders, will be merged into the most important division, which builds civil aircraft including the A380, and will be called just “Airbus”. The other two divisions are to become that entity’s subsidiaries, so that in theory, there will be less scope for national loyalties. Another aim of the restructuring is to focus the group more on the market for jetliners—which is booming, thanks largely to rising demand for air travel from the expanding middle classes in emerging economies.

　　现在，由恩德斯先生带领的空中客机公司，其喷气科技部门将合并为最重要的角色，它会修建囊括A380的民用飞机，并且将称其为“空中客机”。而其他两个部门将会成为其子公司，从而，在理论上来看，关乎国家忠诚的私心将会越来越少。重建公司的另一个目的是为了让公司更加关注喷气客机市场—这将会成为一个兴起的市场，很大程度上是由于新兴经济中逐渐扩大的中层阶级群体对飞机旅行不断上涨的需求。

　　Subsidiaries：子公司

　　Mr Enders’s principal goal is to close the long-standing profitability gap with Boeing. The European firm’s average pre-tax profit margin was 2.2% in the decade to 2015, compared with 6.8% for Boeing. That was before a fresh list of problems hit Airbus, wiping nearly a fifth off the firm’s market valuation since December.

　　恩德斯先生的主要目标是为了缩小于波音公司长期存在的盈利差距。从十年前到2015年，欧洲公司的平均税前利润率是2.2%，而波音公司是6.8%。期待您的翻译，您可以将翻译留言到文章底部，第二天会有详细解析哦。

　　profit margin：利润率

　　The bad news began in April, when the group’s defence and space division, which produces a fifth of group revenues, revealed new engine problems on its A400M military transporter, which had already accumulated more than €5 billion ($5.6 billion) in write-downs. The jetliner business, which makes 70% of group sales, also hit turbulence. Expensive defects on its new A320neo and A350 planes led to a halving of profits, year on year, in the first quarter. Airbus Helicopters, meanwhile, suffered as demand fell forchoppers in the offshore oil and gas industry.

　　负面新闻始于四月，当时能够给公司带来5%收入的国防和太空部门在其研发的A400M军用运输机引擎出现了新的问题，这让公司已经累计损失50亿欧元资产(约56亿美元)。占据公司七成收益的喷气客机部门也发生了动荡。在新型机型A320noe和A350出现了代价高昂的瑕疵，这让公司与去年同期相比的第一度收入减少了一半。与此同时，空中客机公司旗下的直升机产业也经受直升机在沿海石油和天然气产业的需求下降。

　　Write-downs：资产减值

　　Turbulence：动荡，骚乱Choppers：直升机(俚)

　　Regulatory setbacks have piled up, too. At the start of August Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) opened a full criminal investigation into allegations of bribery by the firm that have already cost it access to cheap export financing. And in September the WTO ruled that the EU had failed to cut illegal state aid to Airbus, which Boeing alleges is worth $22 billion over decades. The ruling opens the door to America imposing tariffs on Airbus’s planes, although an appeal could delay any such action for years.

　　监管也遭受着不断增加的挫折。在八月初,英国严重欺诈办公室(SFO)展开了一项全面的刑事调查，指控依靠行贿获取廉价出口融资成本的集团。9月,世贸组织裁定,欧盟未能减少非法政府援助空客,价值220亿美元的波音公司认为在过去几十年这一援助达到了两千两百万的金额。尽管上诉可能会将诸如此类的行为推迟多年，但如此裁决为美国向空客征收关税开启了大门。

　　setbacks：挫折;倒退;(病的)复发;逆流

　　pile up：堆积;积聚;(汽车等)挤在一起;(使)(船)搁浅

　　serious fraud office：英国严重欺诈办公室;英国严重诈骗调查局;英国欺诈重案办公室

　　allegation ：断言;指控;主张

　　Airbus’s management is moving to contain the technical troubles on its new planes. Few sales have been lost at Rolls-Royce, an enginemaker, since a similar SFO investigation began there in December 2013. More of a concern is Airbus’s flagship superjumbo. Although passengers love the A380, few airlines do because they find it too big to fill profitably. Early on, Airbus hoped to sell up to 1,200 supersize planes over two decades; it has produced only 194 so far. Just 125 orders remain, and half of those are likely to be cancelled.

　　对空客的管理正转向新飞机的技术问题。尽管自2013年12月以来，类似SFO调查就已经开始了，然而这对劳斯莱斯，引擎制造者仅仅造成了些许销售的下降。更多的担忧是空客的旗舰超大型客机。尽管乘客喜爱A380,很少有航空公司倾向于它因为发现它太过大以致难以搭载到满足盈利的人数。在早期,空客希望未来20年出售1200架超大飞机,然而到目前为止只生产有194架。现有订单只有125个,并且其中有一半订单可能会被取消。

　　flagship： n.旗舰;王牌

　　Superjumbo： n.超级巨型飞机

　　Airbus’s executives are keen to prop up production in the hope that demand will rebound, but it will cost them. In July the firm said it would cut production from 27 a year, which is the number at which the plane can be made profitably, to just 12 by 2018. At that rate, Airbus would lose as much as €250m a year on making the planes, says Sandy Morris, an aerospace analyst at Jefferies, a bank.

　　怀有需求将会反弹的期望，空客高管一直坚持生产,但这会使他们付出成本。7月,该公司表示,它将削减产量，从可以盈利时的飞机产量，即27个一年到2018年的仅有年产12个。在那样的生产率下,空客将失去多达因每年制造飞机的250万英镑,航空Jefferies银行的分析师Sandy莫里斯表示。

　　Prop up：把…撑住;给…撑腰

　　Each of Airbus’s problems is manageable by itself because of the firm’s sheer size: this year the group is forecast to generate €65 billion in revenues. Airbus now has around half of the global jetliner market, up from 19% in 1995, and its share is expanding. It has received a tenth more orders across its range than its American rival over the past decade

　　.因为公司的规模，空客的每个问题本身是可控的:该集团今年预计将产生€650亿的收入。从1995年的19%,到现在空客有大约一半的全球喷气客机市场,并且其市场份额仍在不断扩大。在过去的十年，它比其美国相同规模的竞争对手收到订单多十分之一。

　　Mr Enders’s next challenge will be margins. The firm’s run of problems pose a threat to slim profits of around €2 billion a year. In the 2000s Airbus’s government shareholders often saw propping up local plants as more important than profits. It now returns the cost of capital invested in it; but there is still a way to go. “They now not only need to deliver their planes on time—but their profits too,” chides one adviser to Airbus’s management. Mr Enders has weakened the influence of state investors in his efforts to make Airbus a more normal company. Private shareholders are likely to be harder to please.

　　恩德斯的下一个挑战将是利润空间。公司的运营问题威胁着每年大约€20的亿微薄利润。在2000年代空客的政府股东通常认为支撑当地工厂比利润更重要。现在要返还资本投资成本,但仍有很长的路要走。“他们不仅需要按时提供飞机，同时要牺牲利润,”一位空客管理顾问斥责道。通过努力，恩德斯削弱了国家投资者的影响，使得空客变为更普通的公司。私人股东也许更难取悦。

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