New Airbus CEO charts modernisation path under leaner management

PARIS: New chief executive Guillaume Faury imposed his mark on Airbus with a simplified management structure and a manifesto for factory modernisation, as Europe’s plane giant enters a new phase in its titanic rivalry with Boeing.

The 51- year- old former planemaking head unveiled the changes a day after the retirement of Tom Enders, the last of the company’s founders to leave the scene of recent power battles.

“We are in a period of exceptional change in our industry and we need to prepare Airbus for the opportunities and challenges ahead,” Faury said in a statement.

“We will utilise new digital technologies to optimise our industrial system,” he added.

Airbus was until recently a very public battleground for FrancoGerman industrial rivalries and personal power struggles, but Faury stayed out of the spotlight as Enders quarrelled with then planemaking chief Fabrice Bregier.

Faury, who moved over from the helicopters unit to run the planes division when Bregier fell last year, on Thursday eliminated the post from a new 12-person executive panel lifting engineering, communications and sales to the top table.

Airbus celebrates its 50th anniversary as a planemaker this year and its 20th since the announcement of a panEuropean merger that resulted in the creation of a wider FrancoGerman aerospace company, now integrated back into Airbus itself.

The new shake-up effectively completes that transition.

Airbus is expected to shift away from the adventurist spirit and public baiting of US rival Boeing of earlier years to a focus on advanced production methods increasingly imported from the car industry, where Faury spent four years in senior manufacturing and research roles at Peugeot maker PSA Group.

The methodical former military flight test engineer set out his priorities to shareholders on Wednesday.

“I see fantastic challenges...we have to invent new production systems and leverage the power of data,” Faury said.