Faury looks to transform Airbus

  • Guillaume Faury has been the chief executive officer of Airbus Group since April 1. In this exclusive interview, he looks back on his first six months and ahead for the future of the company. This is part 1 of two parts. Part 2 will appear soon.

Guillaume Faury

Oct. 30, 2019, © Leeham News: Guillaume Faury assumed his office as chief executive officer of the Airbus Group at a time when the company was trying to emerge from years-long scandals over bribery and corruption probes and the industry was only beginning to reel from the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX.

Now, he’s focused on guiding Airbus in the future through a series of transformations to put the scandals behind the company, change production for the future and prepare for new airplanes that inevitably must be designed.

Becoming CEO

Faury’s been with Airbus for 20 years, surrounding a four-year stint with Peugeot from 2009-2013 as EVPO of Research and Development. He was named president of Airbus Commercial in February 2018. He previously was president and CEO of Airbus Helicopters from 2013-2018.

He succeeded CEO Tom Enders, who was not going to be given another term as part of the fallout of the numerous government investigations into past practices at Airbus involving third parties for aircraft sales, bribery and corruption allegations.

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Although Enders and CFO Harald Wilhelm initiated the probes and reported the problems to the governments, they along with many others had to go as Airbus tried to limit the damage.

Compliance going forward

Compliance, obviously, emerges from the years of investigations by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office and governments in Germany, France and the US. Faury is continuing the Airbus efforts toward compliance.

“We want to be known as a company that relies very strong pillars of quality, safety, integrity and compliance,” he said in an interview Oct. 17 with LNA.

Faury doesn’t have any indication when the investigations will be wrapped up. What’s important, he said, is that Airbus emerges in a leadership position on compliance.

“We had three main things to do: full cooperation with the authorities, which we have done from day one. The second thing was to change a number of people in the company to emerge with a team that was not affected by what happened. The third one was to put in place a compliance system is state of the art. This is what we are doing. We have made a lot of progress and therefore what we had to do in that situation is something we are prepared to moving forward,” he said.

“It’s not only the mindset, it’s about the culture, the training and the know-how. It’s values. It’s also the way we work together in transformations. It’s the way we want to contribute.”

Production transformation

Faury is also focused on improving the Airbus production system. Airbus, Faury said, has fallen behind in some areas.

“There are transformational challenges we have tried to clarify,” he said. The products and production systems need to change. The synergies, the know-how, the automation, the robotization of very large and complex objects like planes is kicking in and will make a big difference for the next generation of airplanes,” he said.

“The transformational change is where we need to do more.”

He says Airbus is far ahead of Boeing in the area of digitalization, an initiative begun under Enders.

“I would differentiate manufacturing techniques and digital, because right or wrong, my perception is that we are ahead of Boeing very significantly in digital. How do I measure it? The A350 program management, certification, production, industrialization, entry into service has been very well managed, and it’s mainly because of the 3D approach of the product,” he said.

“And when I look at Skywise, I think we are in a unique position in the industry, and I don’t see Boeing doing something similar. We have really understood the value of big data, how to manage them, how to put them on a platform. We are now close to 100 airlines having joined the program, putting their data on that platform. We are moving forward as well in terms of 3D into DDMS, okay, which is digital design, manufacturing and services.”

Skywise is an Airbus program that, among other things, provides predictive maintenance and notifies the airplane crew and ground maintenance of specific issues that need to be addressed as the plane arrives at the gate. This cuts time to identify and fix problems that pop up during flights and reduces delays and costs to the airlines.

“The comparison with Boeing in my view is not 350 versus others, because if we would do this comparison, I think we are ahead,” he said. “I think what Boeing has done on the NG, on the production system of the 737 NG was a bolder approach to the product and the production system than what we’ve been doing in Airbus. But I have a feeling with what we are doing in Hangar 245, with the automation we have put in Broughton, with the FAL 4 in Hamburg, we are having a trajectory with maybe more speed. So I think it’s not easy to compare.”

Boeing adopted a moving production line for the NG that dramatically increased efficiencies and lowered costs. There were some painful times when the supply chain failed to keep up, but today Boeing has the ability to produce 70 737s a month through the Renton factory—an extraordinary efficiency for one building.

Airbus’ A320 production platform in Toulouse is less automated than those in Hamburg, where a new highly automated line opened last month.

Converging automation

Boeing is engaged in a multi-year shift to a host of advanced manufacturing techniques under the code name Black Diamond. The plan has been to converge all these techniques for the first time at Boeing Commercial Airplanes into the New Midmarket Airplane (NMA). The time and cost reduction is an important part of the NMA business plan, which hasn’t closed after several years of effort.

Now, with the 737 MAX grounding that so far has cost Boeing $9.2bn—a figure that is certain to rise—it’s questionable whether the NMA will ever get off the ground. (NMA off the table in 2020 and maybe entirely, Oct. 21, 2019.)

“We share the same perception that the NMA was the convergence of the project’s initiative to go full digital for the product and the production system” Faury said. “Call it digital twin. We use this expression as well. We see that they have used some of the building blocks of previous experiences.”

“On the NMA itself, we think it is a very difficult segment, given the fact they have the 737 and the 787. It’s a very narrow segment. We have placed our planes already. They have to catch up now. We are happy they are coming late to the party.”

Environmental sensitivity

Airbus years ago began upping its game in the environmental arena. Faury wants a greater push going forward.

“The third [transformation] is the speed of change of society, of the states, of the regulation, of the expectations of customers, of people, of our own employees. That shows we need to be much faster and taking things much more seriously with the environment and the de-carbonization of aviation,” he says.

40 Comments on “Faury looks to transform Airbus

  1. The Muilenburg hearing before Congress today is going to be interesting!
    Reuters is reporting that Congressman Peter De Fazio has indicated that the panel is aware of “at least one case where a Boeing manager implored the then-Vice President and General Manager of the 737 program to shut down the 737 MAX production line because of safety concerns.”

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-airplane-congress/u-s-lawmakers-will-press-boeing-ceo-on-day-2-of-testimony-idUSKBN1X912Y

    • Eh…I (thought I) posted the comment above within the article relating to Muilenburg’s Senate testimony yesterday…not sure how it ended up here.
      In the current article, it’s off-topic…sorry.

    • That is missing out on 1.5 to 2.5 frames per month.
      I do wonder what the basic issue is. Again too much flexibility designed in like on the A380?

      • I read elsewhere that it is due to a) too many variables in specs (ie A380 like) and b) fuselage flex during manufacture/assembly.

        Maybe the flex they refer to is related to drilling reaction forces (useful article at https://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/19193/High-Accuracy-Automation-for-Aerospace-Manufacturing.aspx)? Or maybe it is down to factory movement with Hamburg being coastal (BAe Warton, a coastal site, moves something like 1-2mm due to tides and so for Typhoon assembly had to develop structural mitgation to deal with aircraft movement/flex)? Or something else entirely?

        Would be interesting to know the differences they’ve made in the new Hamburg automated line that has just been inaugurated (1 Oct press release).

        • It could also refer to the “Cabin Flex” concept, which is standard on the A321LR and A321XLR — and will be standard on future “regular” A321s — but is not standard on present-day A321s. The difference is 4 regularly-spaced full doors (present A321) versus 3 full doors + 2 overwing exits (Cabin Flex). It apparently is a major headache in the factory having to iterate back and forth between the two concepts, depending on the particular MSN being manufactured.

        • @Woody

          On page 44 in the October 14-27 printed edition of AW&ST (subscription required) — published online Oct 3 — there’s an article that looks at how Airbus further automates its assembly lines.

          Hangar 245 can take care of the A320 fuselage, but has a special focus on A321LRs. The longer-range version has a different arrangement — the aft fuselage section (between the center fuselage and the tail cone) is made of a single barrel instead of two. This required a new production process, so using the new section to implement the plan for more automation made sense, says Walter.

          https://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/airbus-further-automates-its-manufacturing

          On page 13 in this document — https://bit.ly/334c5ts — you can see that the A321 was stretched by one fuselage plug (8 frames) forward of the wing (Section 14A) and by one fuselage plug (5 frames) aft of the wing (Section 16A). Thus, the standard A321 shares with the A320 fuselage Sections 11/12, 13/14, 15 (i.e. with plugged over wing exit doors on the A321), 17, 18 and 19.

          The most visible changes compared with the previous A321 variant are the “Airbus Cabin Flex” (ACF) enhancements. These include: the removal of the Doors 2L/2R in Section 14A; the addition of new upward-swinging double emergency over-wing exit doors (i.e. four in total); and the moving further back by four frames of the doors just aft of the wing (known as Doors 3L/3R on previous A321s).

          The new door configuration meant that the doors just aft of the wing would have been moved from Section 16A into Section 17. A cost-benefit analysis has probably shown that while foregoing commonality savings with having the A321 sharing the same Section 17 with the A320, it would be better to make Section 16A part of a new enlarged Section 17 on the A321. So, it’s likely that these changes to the A321LR ACF aft fuselage section is the root cause of the production delays.

          Furthermore, one pair of the over-wing doors and the two relocated “Door-3s” can be activated or deactivated depending on the respective layout and seating density. Moreover, the deletion of Door-2 facilitates for the first time an uninterrupted seating zone spanning the entire forward half of the aircraft, thus enabling variable business class sizes without degrading layout efficiency.

          In picture nr. 7 in the link below, you can see the new single barrel aft section:

          https://www.aerotelegraph.com/en/airbus-is-testing-the-factory-of-the-future-in-hamburg

  2. Tom Enders comes across as a very affable guy. I commend him for making some hard and unpopular decisions such as shutting down the A380 program and cleaning up so that Airbus is set and Faury has a clearer run.

  3. Phasing out of A380 production should improve production capabilities of the A320 family by 2022?

    • The newest automated A320 FAL line in XFW
      already uses the infrastructure initially destined for A380 work.

      ( Man what a step from Sunday outings back when XFW
      was nothing more than a short runway, a guy with 80 sheep at the southern end,
      a single C160 Transall and two HFB 320 Hansa Jets on the apron. (mid 60ties 🙂 )

  4. Most likely it will be bio JET-A first, then some smaller Aircraft electrical short range flying before those planes evolove in size, speed and glide ratio and maybe electrical assisted take-off so they don’t have to use own batteries for the T-O run. Think of a motorized Airbus PerlanII x 5 in size and 18 pax before a Twin Perlan of 36pax and 500km effective range even during advese conditions.

    • Air Transport is less than 12% of transport emissions and less than 2% of total emissions. The industry has been averaging nearly 0.7% per anum fuel burn improvements. It is a colossal misdirection of resources and effort to focus on aviation for mitigation efforts in CO2 reduction because the low hanging fruit is elsewhere. Spending 100 million in batteries, electric harvesters, electric cars, tractors or carbon neutral steel will yield much better bang for the buck. Than electric aircraft. At the moment these biofuels are a good PR cover. There are niches such as urban eVTOL and electric training aircraft and sail planes. Having said that I’m well informed, I can run data through a spreadsheet or database and have survived several predicted climappocalypse and several inundations. The whole catastrophising of climate change is managed hysteria and should be illegal because of the harm it does to children. There is no climate emergency. I’m well informed. At some point the industry will need to start pushing back on the fringe groups and interests exaggerating the issues.

      Aviation wont change much. There is always the cryogenic hydrogen option but synthetic hydrocarbons from direct atmospheric capture are just as efficient to make. Not interested from a climate point of view, just like the idea of energy independence. Going to add hundreds of dollars on a 10,000km flight.

      • William, the thing is that scientists have been way too conservative in their predictions regarding the climate catastrophe. They normally publish only the “safe” results, not the “probable” ones. Now if you look at what’s happened over the past couple years, you see that the climate actually changes in the “probable” way, clearly outrunning the “safe” predictions.

        So where does that leave us: With a world that is already experiencing dramatic changes and those only accelerate. This means we need to work on this problem at every possible way and there is no industry that will carry on unchanged.

        It will only take a few years that CO2 emissions are taxed massively, because that’s probably the only way to get at all “polluters”.

        We know how long it takes to change structures and industries, how long it takes to develop planes and their supporting infrastructure. So I believe it is very wise of Faury and his colleagues to make this a central topic of the companies strategy.

        • I dont think you understand what the scientific hypothesis is and how climate ‘predictions’ are arrived at. Using models the weather service cant really predict anything outside of 2 weeks and the 3 monthly forecasts arent even within normal seasonal variations.
          On the other hand computer simulations of aircraft flight to produce predictions of structural performance and aircraft dynamics is closely matched to what is found in later test flights. And they get their results directly, not by running the simulations 1000s of times and drawing a line ‘somewhere in the middle’

        • My primary point was that with aviation no more than 2% of global emissions and with aviation achieving 7% fuel burn reduction/decade it is wrong to misdirect effort at aviation. Its a massive waste of resources. It should be directed elsewhere but in this world of 16 year old environmental oracles such optimisations are simply a matter of “how dare you”. I do not believe in catastrophic climate change. I know for sure people with ulterior motives are exaggerating it as part of personal agendas. I am fascinated by the technology of substation but oppose the harm done to children by the sense of doom and anxiety it creates.

          The UN IPCC report is a list of documents supporting the argument for negative effects of climate change etc. The IPCC does not fund or produce a list of documents falsifying or arguing the opposite. It’s not science to favour in this way. Many climate scientists have withdrawn themselves from the catastrophising of this report. Here is one Dutch Climate Scientist:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8lCWDeoWzo&list=WL&index=83&t=359s

          The IPCC correct or withdraw only the most egregious mistakes such as the recent claim that ocean temperatures are rising. (This is a red flag even I would have to accept). The IPCC summary report invariably exaggerates any air temperature changes by starting trends in say the 1960’s while ignoring heat waves in the 1940s and 1930s. That’s how they and NOAA get their 1.8F temperature rise (by ignoring hot periods prior to the 1960s eg 1930s and 1940)

          Lets look at the state of the world. It’s actually very good. There are now more trees and forests than there were 100-150 years ago (logging for fire wood has reduced). The world is rapidly greening and slightly more CO2 is probably a cause of this. The great Barrier Reef and other major corals are not dying approximately 5% of reefs are always in dying and/or recovery. Over 86% of the Amazon, the lungs of the world, are virgin since European settlement and most of the remaining 14% is green or reforesting. Polar Bear numbers have increased despite an early ice melt this year. Conservation is working. There have been no sea level rises since Al Gore predicted we could all be under water. Tectonic plate shifts cause minor ups and downs here and there.
          The sun is the primary driver of weather, the good or bad news is that we are likely to enter a 35 year cooling period. Last time this happened much of Europe didn’t have a summer.

          • It’s refreshing to read your comments. I don’t agree with some of them, but I can certainly see some degree of merit in various others. I’m glad you raised the mini ice age issue at the end of your message: we might some day be glad of a bit of extra warming when things start to cool off.

            The main problem with such comments is that you’ll now probably be pounced on and savaged by climate “crusaders” who feel that they have a God-given right to the only valid opinion, and that any contrary voices must be immediately put in a muzzle. In many cases, such crusaders have no (or very little) scientific acumen, and are regurgitating half-read reports.

            Commercial activities in the Netherlands were recently brought to a virtual standstill by a high court ruling regarding nitrogenous emissions: the case was brought by a group of environmental crusaders (in my opinion: anarchists), was ruled on by judges who probably have very little technical knowledge, and has severely impeded activities in construction and agriculture. What all parties seem to forget is that, if you go back a few hundred years to the time when the Rhine and Meuse in the Netherlands naturally flooded in the spring, vast quantities of partially decomposed river silt were deposited on huge areas of land…and river silt also prodigiously produces the emissions that are now the subject of such controversy.

            Regardless of what one thinks of the severity of the underlying (perceived) problem, no realistic benefit is going to be achieved taking uninformed, hysterical, doomsday actions.

            Notice how I was savaged when I “dared” suggest below that the aviation industry was doing its fair share. The fact that an A350 produces about half the emissions of a B747-400 is ignored by the climate crusader involved, who instead prefers to bitch about the fact that airlines don’t pay VAT on fuel, and that more and more people are flying.

        • Gundolf you were probably teached about scientific method but you learned nothing.
          Really saying that half degree of something badly measured can be attributed to anything!?

          You are a product of endless repetition propaganda and existential sin.

          In earth history we have had much more CO2 in atmosphere and cooler temperatures – i am not talking about half degree variations that are impossible to attribute –

          Maybe you should read some historical texts about climate history instead of newspapers. Try to explain past climate variations.
          You or anyone else can’t.

      • The big contributor are of cause ground/sea transportation, steel and concrete factories and the population growth, but Airlines do their share at altitude. Historically there has been big climate changes, like when Santorini vulcano exploded, but nowdays we do not accpet a 20-30% mortality of effected populations mainly due to irrigation water due temperature rise.
        The global heating is pretty well understood and you only need to travel to Charmonix get onto your skiis and talk to the senior mountain guides to hear very clearly what happens.
        One can argue that once people own land, build houses and have big morgages they will work hard to keep the house and have few kids. Still Aviation is so visible and should do its share.

        • Aviation is already doing more than its share. The huge fuel bills that airlines have to pay are a natural incentive to constantly demand more fuel-efficient aircraft.

          Decreasing the maximum speed on freeways from 120 km/h to 100 km/h would produce a gargantuan reduction in emissions…but you don’t hear many people talking about that because it’s currently more fashionable to be anti-aviation.

          It would also be a huge help if humans stopped breeding like rabbits. Let’s see which government will be the first to introduce a “child tax”…to make it clear that your new little baby is a future carbon bomb for the planet. No no no…much easier to point a finger at aviation!

          • The current trend like with the A320neo gives you a faster climbing, quiter and less fuel burning Aircraft. Next generation will be more of the same but you might have a slower cruising speed. Other transportation providers have to reduce emissions as well, finally big ships emitting massive amounts of sulphur rich emissions are forced to reduce emissions, still a far cry from the regulations new Aircraft Engines has to meet of similar Power level.

            https://www.ship-technology.com/news/thousands-of-ships-use-cheat-devices-to-cheat-emissions-regulations-find-the-independent/

          • @Peter

            What a lot of nonsense. The aviation industry is far from doing its fair share. By 2020, global aviation emissions are projected to be around 70 percent higher than in 2005 and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) forecasts that by 2050 they could grow by a further 300-700 percent.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/climate/air-travel-emissions.html

            The increased warming effect of other, non-CO2, emissions (i.e. NOx), can also make a significant difference to emission calculations when they are released at high altitudes. The climate effect of non-CO2 emissions from aviation is much greater than the equivalent from other modes of transport, as these non-CO2 greenhouse gases formed at higher altitudes persist for longer than at the surface and also have a stronger warming potential. However, there is scientific uncertainty about how this effect should be represented when doing the calculations. The ICAO excludes it, while for example, the department for mobility and transport at the EU is using a 90 percent increase to reflect it. Thus, the cumulative impact of aviation on man-made climate change in 2005 was estimated at 4.9 percent, which comprises the impact of greenhouse gas emissions including CO2 and non-CO2 effects such as nitrogen oxides, vapour trails and cloud formation triggered by the altitude at which aircraft operate.

            It’s important to note that the aviation industry is heavily subsidised — e.g. by direct subsidies such as operations to loss-making airports that are propped up by taxpayer’s money, and infrastructure developments. The industry is typically exempt from basic consumer taxes such as VAT and aviation fuel is rarely taxed (globally).

            Across the EU, for example, consumers pay on average about €0.5 per litre of fuel in tax every time they fill up their cars, but airlines pay no tax when they fill up their 737s and A320s.

            These subsidies artificially boost aviation demand, while at the same time reduce the incentives for more sustainable aviation such as developing significantly more efficient aircraft (i.e. doing much more than just “max-ing” and “neo-ing”) and less use of carbon intensive fuels. Emissions will likely continue to soar as long as the industry is not forced to accelerate change.

            One way of pricing carbon in the transport industries would, of course, be to adjust existing taxes and levies on energy products according to their CO2 intensity. Reductions would be achieved purely through an (annually increasing) price on CO2 — preferably agreed to first by governments within a trading block such as the EU. This would finally force the aviation industry and its stakeholders to act.

            Now, if for example a significant number of large businesses that rely on air travel clubbed together, their collective demand for carbon-neutral travel could catalyse the ramping up of production of synthetic air fuel that captures CO2 during their production phase. The more plants that are built, the cheaper the production process and fuel product becomes.

            The aviation industry faces huge challenges if it is to meet its own self-imposed climate change targets, according to a new UN report.

            And even if it does meet all its targets, aviation will still have consumed 12% of the global carbon budget for 1.5C by 2050, Carbon Brief analysis shows. If it fails to reach this target, its share of this budget could rise to as much as 27%.

            The sector has an aspirational goal to cap its emissions at 2020 levels, so that any growth after this year is achieved in a “carbon neutral” way.

            This will not be easy. Airlines estimate that air travel will grow by an average of just under 5% per year up to 2034 — and the emissions from these extra air miles will be difficult to decarbonise.

            https://www.carbonbrief.org/aviation-consume-quarter-carbon-budget

            Now, thanks to the Fischer-Tropsch process and concentrated solar radiation, it appears possible that jet fuel can be made from H2O and CO2:

            Furler believes that the oil industry is best-suited to help with the such a scale up. “We need the support of people with the know how, and guys in the oil and gas industry have shown that they know how to massively scale up,” he said.

            Furler hopes to get the oil industry involved in replacing the current industrial process where kerosene is made in large oil refineries by distilling it from oil. Once relevant CO2 taxation is imposed that process will become more expensive and less economically attractive.

            “Currently they are doing it cheaper,” said Furler. “Typically you take oil and distillate. It is simply an oil-based product. It is much simpler, but it’s a fossil based process. You have massive CO2 emissions associated with it.”

            According to the SOLAR-JET Project Coordinator at Bauhaus Luftfahrt, Dr. Andreas Sizmann, a solar reactor with a 1 square kilometer heliostat field could generate 20,000 litres of kerosene a day. This output from one solar fuels refinery could fly a large 300-body commercial airliner for about seven hours.

            Furler has just founded the ETH spin-off Sunredox to commercialize the technology.

            Thermochemical solar fuel manufacturing would have an industry life of centuries, rather than decades. The feedstock of sunlight, carbon dioxide and water is essentially unlimited.

            “Oil is a limited resource; at some point you will run out,” he pointed out. “What we propose is another route to the same chemical, using solar energy.”

            https://www.solarpaces.org/how-desert-solar-can-fuel-centuries-of-air-travel/

            https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/ee/c6ee03776c#!divAbstract

            https://www.sun-to-liquid.eu/

  5. Can’t believe air bus has stopped using good qualified aircraft contract fitters due to a change in HMRC rules ie IR35 as there is ways to work this issue .The impact it has had already on English an European production lines is staggering .ie bewildered as thought airbus knew what they were doing ?????

    • Hmm. never much heard about it beyond Ryan Air employment funnies.
      Could you give some more examples?
      Maybe even beyond the UK ?

    • I don’t think they have a choice, they are required to treat you as employees and put you through PAYE to make sure you pay your rightful tax. It has been coming for years as HMRC turn the screw on contractors avoiding tax. I had to do this for my team of 20+ freelancers 4 or 5 years ago unless they could jump through the hoops.

  6. Well at the moment full time staff are having to travel to Broughton from hamburg vice versa .Were before contract staff were used to to forfill a lot of staff issues. I know for a fact that Broughton would need 200 contract aircraft at this moment to carry out production work and not just on A320.

  7. With all the focus on increasing the A320 lines, it makes one wonder if the A220 lines are going to be a concerted effort going forward. Faury may be trying to keep his cards close to his vest. Boeing and Airbus have a finite amount of resources for new projects, and I get the impression Airbus will wait on the former to see the outcomes of issues such as the MAX, the NMA and/or the NSA and possibly the 777x.

    • Think the P&W engines supply and reliability problems could become a major problems in ramping up production and sales for the A220.

      Keep it simple and safe, get an A320 with Leap-A’s, even if its with de-rated (25Klb) engines and lower MTOW for mission of <2 500NM.

  8. Faury says investment will reduce in the UK after Brexit. I don’t think so, AirbusUK is the only part of Airbus producing Wings at the Faury number. The Germans and French CANNOT produce their parts and are a major problem, not the British, that is causing this slow down. Wings are piling up in the Car parks of Broughton ready to be delivered, but the fuselages are unmade. Faury needs to sort the Germans and French out for there inefficient work practices before threatening the Brits.

    • I would guess that Mr. Faury is mainly talking about reducing investment in the UK on future programmes and not on aircraft families that are in production.

    • It’s possible that Mr. Faury wants to open parallel wing production somewhere on the European mainland (a big, empty A380 hangar in Hamburg comes to mind). In aviation, it’s making more and more sense not to have all your eggs in one basket. After all, if Boris Johnson (if he’s still PM) wants to get nasty and try to force a future trade deal from the EU, he might decide to levy a severe export duty on wings (the current aviation-related agreements only cover import duties).

      • With increasing production automation impacting the skilled labour demands and global trade worries impacting production location concerns I think it is a good idea to have more than 1 wing site. But no reason at all for it to be in high cost inflexible France or Germany rather than close to the US/China sites.

        • That’s a good point. Spain is also a possibility…Airbur already have a footprint there.

    • If there was as much customisation on wings as there is on other aircraft parts, trust me the UK would also struggle with it.

      Customisation is the killer. If you have one steady product running off the line (like there is in Broughton, apart from maybe paint scheme and the occasional jettison system), it’s comparatively easy to serialise the product and deliver consistently.

  9. To add, Faury is turning Airbus into a production company as he has previous producing cars. This can only be short term as experience is rapidly being lost in design, which means the work force will not have the experience soon to design a new plane if that is Airbus’s future and will rely on inexperience that will cost much more to keep planes in-service.

    • Good point, hope they are looking into the future. Have AB written of the 250-300 seat TA market and decided to focus on the SA and 300+ seat TA market?

      The 330-900 have some sales, the 330-8 sales is not happening, see certification is also delayed. AB was the leader in this segment, hope they will do something in the smaller TA market after having sorted out their production before they lose technical competence. Airlines that want A321 today would want a 250 seat TA in 10-15 years?

  10. A number of P&W engine incidents on A320’s and A220’s the last two weeks. P&W better start getting it right. My concern is when does it turn fatal, maybe time Mr Faury to make decisions on the situation before its too late?

    • The P&W situation is not getting better, Shouldn’t AB stop production of GTF powered NEO’s until this is sorted (happened before), hopefully some leadership at AB.

      More trouble for Indigo and GoAir ahead.
      http://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/1006917280?-303:3665

      Sure the new 300 aircraft ordered by INDIGO recently won’t be powered by P&W. Hopefully the R&R UF’s are tested and tested and tested before it goes into EIS. Maybe the MAX, PW-GTF and TRENT1000 sagas have taught OEM’s that greed is costly.

  11. No one that I knew avoided tax it’s the law after all everyone with Ltd companys paid there tax leagelly but getting back to production rates at airbus it’s only going to cause them problems ask any production manager on British an euro lines

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