Even though a lot of European planes had a lot of new features, even the most successful planes were not made for long. In 1991, Jean Pierson, who was then the CEO and Managing Director of Airbus Industrie, gave some reasons why American plane makers were bigger: because the United States is so big, people preferred to fly; a 1942 agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States meant that the United States would make transport planes; and World War II had given the United States "a profitable, vigorous, powerful and structured aeronautical industry."