Eric Schulz new Airbus Commercial Aircraft sales manager

By Bjorn Fehrm

November 28, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: Eric Schulz, President of the Civil Aerospace division at Rolls-Royce, has been appointed as the successor of John Leahy, COO-Customers, at Airbus.

Schulz will join Airbus as EVP, Head of Sales, Marketing & Contracts for the Commercial Aircraft business end of January 2018.

Leahy, also called Mr. Airbus by his customers, is retiring after having sold 16,000 aircraft over 33 years at Airbus. Leahy will stay on until early spring 2018 to help the transition to Schulz.

Schulz has been heading Civil Aerospace at Rolls-Royce since January 2016.  He joined Rolls Royce in February 2010 as Chief Operating Officer of Gas Turbine Services and ran the Civil Large engines business from 2013.

I met Schulz at the Airbus A330neo first flight a month ago, where he headed the Rolls-Royce group. He is a very approachable and I got a good impression after only 10 minutes of discussion, while waiting for the A330neo to taxi in after its first flight.

Schulz is of French origin but speaks perfect English after 10 years in the US. He worked as president for EADS’ and Northrop Grumman’s EADS Aeroframe company (who successfully sold the Airbus A330 for the US Air Force tanker program, which was overturned on appeal by Boeing) and then president of Goodrich Actuation Systems until joining Rolls-Royce in 2010.

Schulz is now going full circle, as his first job after Masters Degrees at the Ecole d’Ingenieurs of Geneva and ESTA Engineering and Technology School (Paris), was at Airbus (then Aerospatiale).

14 Comments on “Eric Schulz new Airbus Commercial Aircraft sales manager

  1. Normally not a question I would ask.

    At this point with the Vector company , EADS/Airbus bribery actions and the other issues that seem to being raised, Was Mr. Schulz involved in the RR debacle of a few years ago?

    Having watched a good many men who I thought highly of go down in flames in regards to their behavior (in all areas) these last few years I am getting pretty jaded on surface stuff.

  2. As an aside, Qantas is talking about 777x and A350 (possibly an 800) for their long dreamed non stop Oz to Europe mission.

    Can the 777-8 meet that without major mods? i.e. added fuel tanks, lower pax loads.

    • I did a cross check.

      It would seem the 777-8 is about 2000 miles short.

      That seems impossible to make up short of shorting on passengers ala the Singapore to NY flight at 172 (6?)

      • @TransWorld:
        “It would seem the 777-8 is about 2000 miles short.”
        A) SYD-LHR is about 17,000 km /9,200 nm /10,600 miles
        B) Boeing brochure nominal max range for 778 with 350 pax+bags is 16,110 km /8,700 nm /10,010 miles

        Mathematically, B) is fewer than 6% less than A).

        As a result, I hv absolutely no idea where your “2,000 miles short” came from even if we add 10% to the actual distance for mission planning to account for headwind or the longer eastbound routing(i.e. ride the tailwind) for SYD->LHR.

        “…seems impossible to make up short of shorting on passengers ala the Singapore to NY flight at 172 (6?)”
        Alan Joyce hinted last yr in an interview that his target pax load for such ULR mission is about 300pax when he commented that QF metal already carry 300pax fm Australia to JFK on 1stop routing every day.

        This QF target pax count is about 86% of Boeing nominal. For comparison, the 789 already in QF fleet is configured for 236 pax or just 81% of Boeing nominal.

    • it will be not profitable if load less passenger unless if all configured it all business class and first class.

      • @Malek:
        Then U should email your profit warning to Alan Joyce asap because his 789 fleet is precisely configured to “load” 19% “less passenger” than Boeing nominal seat count indicated on brochure. And U should hurry up with your warning because QF is scheduled to begin the truly ultra long PER-LHR with that bird in less than 3.5mths and many pax hv already bought tickets via qantas.com….

        Worst of all, QF’s 789 fleet has no F class and only consist of J, PY and Y.

        While @ it, U may also want to email similar profit warning to Oscar Munoz to stop throwing $ away as UA already operate 789 daily on the ultra long LAX-SIN since last mth and SFO-SIN since 2016 with a config that “load” 13% “less passenger” than Boeing nominal. UA’s 789 also has no F. Similar story re SQ’s 359 on SFO-SIN which also has no F……wow, U hv so many airline CEOs to issue profit warnings to….

  3. It is Schulz and not Shulz or Schultz. Americans have the strange habit of changing European surnames.

    • Leave the Americans out of this–Bjorn is Swedish. 🙂 Thanks. Fixed.

      • And I believe I did get it right?

        As one of those wrong headed Americans of course I would like credit.

  4. ‘Speaks perfect English after 10 years in the states’

    This does call into question what you mean by ‘perfect english’

  5. ” Ecole d’Ingenieurs of Geneva “?
    Its the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland or “HES-SO Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale”

    The better known Swiss engineering school is the world renowned ETH Zurich or Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, but thats for German speakers.

  6. Eric Schulz was not involved in the tanker program. Left EADS in 2003 and the tanker program started later…

  7. Of course, I know none of the personalities involved or business realities, but one cannot help but wonder if this’ll draw RR and Airbus even closer together. I can’t see it doing RR’s sales any harm whatsoever.

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