By Charlotte Bailey

Dec. 11, 2025, © Leeham News, Hamburg: “Aerospace is entering into a defining new era. Demand is rising, sustainability is non-negotiable, and resilience has become as crucial as performance.”

Benoit Schultz. Credit: Airbus.

Speaking on the opening day of the 2025 Hamburg Aviation Forum in Hamburg, Germany, newly appointed Airbus chief procurement officer Benoit Schultz reflected on the aerospace industry’s ongoing work to mitigate an evolving landscape of challenges.

Crucially, endeavours to strengthen a global supply chain come at a time when new threats challenge the resilience of a sector that has, over the last five years, faced ample Covid-related complexities.

“In recent years, the aviation industry has undergone the most severe test in its history,” explained Schultz. And although the industry has also “become even more global” over the last several years, something Schultz believes has “added to [its] strength,” this also brings trade-offs. “We have learned that complex does not always mean robust, and that global can also become a vulnerability,” he continued. “This lesson has driven a shift in mindset from efficiency at all costs to resilience and robustness as a strategic imperative.”

Notably, Schultz believes that “the speed of change is accelerating,” driven by a combination of national political instability, the complexity of trade barriers, and rising geopolitical tensions hindering access to raw materials, parts and technologies. The ability to manage these ongoing risks is especially crucial projected increased demand for aircraft. Airbus’ annual Global Market Forecast, published in June 2025, identified a worldwide fleet of some 50,000 operational aircraft in the next two decades (of which new deliveries will comprise around 45%).

Imperative to have better “anticipates”

As such, it’s perhaps never been as imperative to “shape a supply chain that not only recovers from disruptions, but better anticipates. One that is strong enough to deliver on today’s commitments and agile enough to adapt to tomorrow’s uncertainty,” Schultz stressed.

In practical terms, this means combining industrial resilience (leveraging accessible capacity and planning stability) with operational resilience (including transparency, the ability to identify potential disruption as early as possible, and measures to mitigate disruptions).

Increased adoption of digitization will play a key role in evolving these strategies. “If we define resilience as a foundation, it was said for years that digitalization must be our accelerator. Today, this is no longer a technology project, but a business imperative and the backbone of our long-term stability and competitiveness,” said Schultz. However, he stressed that while augmented digital initiatives have value across the entire supply network, “digitization is not about perplexing people – it’s about augmenting people with better insight and better tools to make decisions.”

New collaboration

The 2025 launch of a new collaborative project has also marked a significant step towards a decentralized digital ecosystem. DECADE-X (Digital ECosystem for Aerospace and DEfence) was initiated with founding partners BoostAeroSpace, Collins Aerospace, Liebherr and Thales. This collaboration is “designed to enable multi-tier collaboration, sovereign data exchange and full interoperability, while also being adapted to smaller and medium-sized enterprises,” explained Schultz.

Airbus’ participation in the Aero Excellence International initiative (operational in France since January 2024) is a further example of its intention to help strengthen companies’ long-term stability. Working in five areas across three maturity levels, the program helps participants identify their own maturity and resilience through a series of universally recognised, evidence-based process that negates the need for multiple separate assessments.

Sustainability is a new value driver

Sustainability, acknowledges Schultz, “is no longer a reporting operation [but] a new value driver,” recognising that an evolving supply chain ecosystem must be “not only cost effective and technologically advanced but [also] environmentally responsible.”

However, despite these myriad challenges, his conclusion is one of optimism. “I find it absolutely striking to see the speed at which our world has evolved, how our industry environment has evolved, but also how we were able to adapt to the changes,” he mused. “And at a time when the world is more uncertain, when individualism sometimes seems to be on the rise, it’s important to remember that our industry has always been a force of stability and unity.”