During an interview on public radio, Guillaume Faury said he expects large aircraft orders and also assured that he can decarbonize aviation.
The Bourget aeronautics fair, which will be held in June of this year, promises significant orders for Airbus. This is what Guillaume Faury hinted at on Wednesday during an interview on France Inter. “There will be orders at Le Bourget. [In 2023] we will have a very strong year for aircraft orders, especially for Airbus,” predicted the general manager of the aerospace group. For reference, in 2022, which was a good year in terms of sales, Airbus had received 1,078 gross orders, or 820 net orders after cancellations were subtracted.
“Parts, equipment, seats are missing…”
On the other hand, the challenge will be to deliver all of these ordered aircraft, as the supplier chain has not yet returned to its pre-Covid production level. “There are missing parts, equipment, arms, raw materials, logistics, etc.,” Guillaume Faury enumerated. An Airbus has three million parts, and some are in shortage, such as calculators, seats, or brackets (fixing elements)… As a result of these production tensions, only 661 Airbus were delivered last year, compared to 860 in 2019, a decrease of 200! And “2023 will continue to be difficult. We will not return to pre-crisis levels until the end of 2024 – beginning of 2025,” which is five years of crisis. Airbus has again set itself the goal of delivering 720 aircraft in 2023, the same as last year, which missed by sixty planes.
Hydrogen will be the ideal energy after 2050
Beyond these temporary difficulties, Guillaume Faury expressed great hopes for the future of the sector. “We will succeed in decarbonizing aviation because we have a solid roadmap,” he said. According to him, hydrogen will be the energy mainly used for the latter half of this century, i.e. after 2050. And he argues, “It is a very effective solution because it does not emit a gram of carbon into the atmosphere.” In the meantime, the first step is to replace the old, fuel-guzzling planes that still represent 80% of the world’s fleet with planes capable of flying on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and with more modern planes. “By 2035-2040, the new generation of planes will consume 20 to 25% less and will be capable of flying with 100% SAF,” predicted Guillaume Faury.
On an international level, the Airbus CEO conceded that the geopolitical situation is evolving in an “unstable and unpredictable world.” As tensions around Taiwan intensify, he justified the installation of a new final assembly line in Tianjin, China, as this market accounts for 20% of global demand for planes. With this strategy, Airbus’ market share has risen from 15% in 2005 to 50% today. He also acknowledged that China is both “a customer, a partner, and a competitor” with its C919 aircraft produced by the state-owned Comac.
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