Aviation Week editors talk with Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury about all things commercial and defense, but his focus is on sustainability.
Jens Flottau, Tony Osborne
Guillaume Faury is pushing Airbus to pursue not only greener approaches to flight but also for the company’s production processes. Credit: J.V. Reymondon/Airbus
AW&ST: Airbus seems to be the one pushing hardest for hydrogen. Pulling hardest.
OK, but there is a lot of skepticism. Oh, less and less.
Most in the industry say that hydrogen will be a factor, but sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) are the real bridge. Do you agree? I agree with half of it. We need SAF now; it is extremely important. SAF is the short-term solution, [and] for long-range [aircraft], it is the solution probably for a long time. It’s compatible with today’s aircraft technology. But I also believe that to go to net zero for the long term, hydrogen is the solution that we absolutely need to start now. Will it be a big share of the carbon savings by 2050? No. There will be initially one plane, and to be there in 2035 we need to start now. Everybody is focused on 2050 because that is the [airline industry’s] net-zero target, but it will be a very inefficient net zero then, and we will need decades to make it efficient.
Can you explain what you mean by inefficient? The quantity of energy that is required for one unit of decarbonized fuel. In 2050, there will be a lot of energy required to get there, and it will be expensive. Look at the time it took for kerosene-based aircraft or cars to become efficient. It takes decades. We want to be the first one leading hydrogen. Many other industries are also looking at hydrogen, it is not just one crazy company in aerospace. There is an ecosystem that is being built, with trucks, the construction business, the chemical industry. Hydrogen has a very clear application in aerospace.
Doesn’t hydrogen have some inherent disadvantages? For instance, for liquid hydrogen you need very heavy and voluminous tanks. Yes, but the energy quantity in 1 kg [2.2 lb.] of kerosene is 12,000 Wh. It is 33,000 [Wh] in 1 kg of liquid hydrogen. So yes, the tank is heavier, it is different. That is why we need engineering and research, and we are exploring many different solutions. Some people look at the solution, some look at the problem. I want to look at the solution and remove the barriers.
Many don’t agree with your vision but respect that at least you have one. It is not an easy path, but we don’t need to change the laws of physics to do this. We would need to change the laws of physics to do the same with a battery. The energy quantity in a battery is 200 to—best case—500 Wh/kg, where kerosene is at 12,000 Wh/kg. On hydrogen, we don’t have that gap. We have to learn how to store hydrogen on a plane in a safe and reliable way, how to distribute it. There are a lot of questions to be answered, but there will be a time when we will converge, select one technology, go to a prototype, fly and certify.
How large will the aircraft be that you want to bring to market in 2035, and how far will it fly? We don’t know yet. We are looking at three different concepts. It is very interesting to see the distribution of flights by distance and aircraft size today. A very large number of flights are below 1,000 nm. Our first aircraft will probably be near the smaller size [of around 100 passengers with a range of 1,000 nm], but that’s just my guess, not the conclusion of the study. It is going to be more regional, and the infrastructure will come by cluster and will also be more regional at the beginning. We are just starting to scratch the surface of the opportunities. At the end of the century, hydrogen will be a very significant part of the fuels we are using.
Is the Airbus hydrogen timeline still intact? Yes: 2025 technology selection and 2027-28 launch of the program. The two years are used to select suppliers, production sites and get the financing, with entry into service in 2035.
Does the industry control its own destiny with regard to SAF production? No, and that’s a very good point. I spend a lot of my time outside of aerospace to deal with that solution. I say “solution” because two years ago I was rather desperate. But I am amazed to see the speed at which things are changing. Airlines are making commitments for roughly 10% SAF by 2030. United Airlines is signing contracts with producers and is explaining where they will get the SAF. But you are right, we really have to engage with the rest of the eco-system. The beauty of the zero-emission alliance is the EU putting its weight behind this. The big investors have understood that it’s unavoidable. Decarbonization will happen, and the money is coming. SAF will be biofuels first and then power-to-liquid. Short term, we have a big untapped feedstock, [and] we think it has the potential to cover 10-15% of the fuel we need. We will grow to power-to-liquid by 2025, and we need a lot of green electricity to kick in.
Are engine manufacturers doing enough to speed things up? GE and Safran’s RISE program will only be ready in 2035, for example. I would disagree on RISE; we need to close a big gap and reduce fuel burn very significantly. The fuels we will be using will be SAF, and they will be expensive. If it is still kerosene in 2040, it will have become scarce, and there will be a high level of taxes. So we need to burn far less fuel to remain affordable for people. A 2035 target is not too bad. The biggest lever short term is to replace the fleet—20% should be replaced now because it is burning too much fuel. RISE is not delaying the process. But I agree with the general statement: Few are engaging at the pace that we need.
Back to today’s operational problems: Hundreds of engines are missing at your or Boeing’s final assembly lines, in airline maintenance, repair and overhaul shops. What went wrong? COVID. We had a huge drop in demand. After 18 months, bam, demand is going up. With the typical lead times in this industry, it is really hard. We at Airbus said in the first half of 2021 that the industry should be prepared for a ramp-up. Many were saying that we were stupid. Many waited, maybe the engine manufacturers as well, but then it was too late. You are behind the curve, and when the curve is steep it is extremely difficult to catch up. That is exactly where we are now.
Do you still believe that Airbus can deliver 720 aircraft this year? We will slow down the day I no longer believe it. We are slightly behind, but I remind you of 2018. At the end of the first half of that year, we were at 300 deliveries. We had decided to stop putting engines on planes and were building gliders. Everyone said, “Guillaume, this will never work.” I was new and still learning. Our guidance was 800 aircraft. The challenge was much bigger than it is now. Will we manage this year? I will know on Dec. 31. Is it time to give up? Of course not. The teams are working like crazy, suppliers are ramping up, we are shaking the engine manufacturers to have them recover, and they tell us they will recover.
After the 2018-19 meltdown, Airbus changed processes and supplier monitoring. Now it feels like you are back to where you were four years ago. If we had not done this, it would be much worse. And COVID was not on the road map.
Do you think Boeing will launch a new aircraft? Ask Boeing.
We are asking you. Don’t ask me about Boeing’s product strategy. What I can tell you is that we need a lot of technologies to reach the breakthroughs we believe are absolutely indispensable for the next generation. I don’t see how one could launch an aircraft today with conventional technologies, with so many breakthroughs five years down the road. I think they are coming to those conclusions as well. It is just the brutal facts. If you launch an aircraft today, there will be something much better five or 10 years later. Your investment is worthless. I would not do it for Airbus. What will the engine be? I had the same view two or three years ago.
The difference between three years ago and today is that Boeing’s position has become so much worse. And time is playing against them. RISE will be available for Boeing and Airbus at the same time. Will they use an old engine five years before we use RISE? Who would do this?
That means your market position will only become better in the next few years. I am not sure. On the single-aisle, it is a supply-constrained market, at least in the short term. Long term, it is a different story, and that is why we decided to go to rate 75 [per month]. There is demand for it.
When will widebody demand come back? There will be strong demand in the second half of the decade. When exactly I don’t know. I have been wrong on the single-aisle, so I use my joker. On single-aisle, it has come faster than I thought. I was not expecting the larger orders coming back in 2021.
Emirates is going to take two A350s a month starting in the middle of 2024. Based on current rates, that is 40% of your production for just one airline. You are going to run out of slots fast. Yes, good point. That will happen. We just started to see at [the International Air Transport Association Annual General Meeting in June] airlines looking at widebodies. There is a gregarious effect. We will go to six A350s next year, and we may start our widebody ramp-up earlier than we thought. So many aircraft have been retired. We went from overcapacity in the market in 2018 and 2019 to undercapacity in 2023 and 2024. We will be very happy to serve that demand with the A350 and the A330neo, which is a very good post-crisis product.
We have a war in Europe, and military spending is rising. Is European industry ready? What is happening in Ukraine is significantly changing the perspective of many European nations. Some embraced the fruits of peace and opted for small defense budgets. But there was a huge gap in understanding what the threat is. Nations are now asking if they should be equipped with defense systems for deterrence or for going to a real war. It must be for both. We have to go back to the basics. And to be credible in the deterrence, the amount of investment needed in technology and know-how is huge. Scale matters. To have scale in Europe, compared to the U.S. or China, you need European countries to come together. I think what is happening now is just accelerating this.
Are you frustrated that a lot of the European money is being spent in the U.S.? Countries like Germany are buying U.S. equipment because we don’t have the capacity in Europe. If countries want to be equipped with the right weapon systems, then you need a long-term view. Systems of that complexity and of that size don’t come overnight. You don’t find a heavy transport helicopter in Europe just because there’s a war in Ukraine, so you must go to the U.S. I am not frustrated about it. But if we want to be equipped with the right European systems, we need to have our eyes on the longer term.
Airbus appears to have an adversarial relationship with Dassault over the Future Combat Air System [FCAS]. How are the issues you are facing on this program going to be fixed? I know [Dassault CEO] Eric Trappier very well. We are in GIFAS [the French aerospace trade association] together, we went through COVID as a team, and there is no adversarial relationship with Dassault. We are a supplier in some areas, and we are cooperating on the Eurodrone. But we have a lot of difficulties coming together on how to manage the FCAS cooperation. Why? First, they have the Rafale, we have the Eurofighter, and we will protect assets and intellectual property because we are competing.
On many other pillars [of FCAS] this is not the case; we have come together on something completely new, and it’s easy to cooperate. The second thing is we have a different history of cooperation. Airbus is very experienced in European cooperation. Dassault has often led on its own, and it takes time to bring those cultures together. It’s going to take a bit more time, but we are going to find a way to balance this model of cooperation for future phases, and we will get there. [The talks] are healthy, and we need to have these difficult discussions now.
So who steps in and closes the deadlock? The states must come together on what they think they need from each other. People often ask why [FCAS] is so slow. I disagree-— FCAS has been incredibly fast from the beginning. We are at a difficult point at a time when there is a bit of challenge in bringing the three states [Germany, France and Spain] to come to an agreement. So it’s taking more time, but the rest has been very fast. We have seven pillars and have agreed on the workshare between 12 parties on all the pillars. Now we need to have industrial players and states around the table. I think it will be done this year.
Norway’s decision to cancel its NH90 looks bad for the wider program. What’s gone wrong? These are complex problems. Norway’s contract features specific mission systems contracted with specific suppliers. It is a program within a program, and there have been a lot of delays for a number of reasons. Very close to the end [of the program], [Norway] came with a very big claim that we disagree with. So we will resolve that topic by negotiation with the customer.
What lessons do you take from this saga? On the next program, we need to reduce the diversity of configurations, mission systems and complexity we put in. As an industry, we have accepted too many of the requests for localizations and special mission system configurations. We need to be more standardized and have better alignment between customers in the early phases of the program.
Are the A400M’s problems finally behind it? The feedback from operations is outstanding, but it’s also a complex program. We had our issues and teething problems at entry into service. We are still finalizing the capabilities and working on availability. We’re developing very complex, high-end products and want a high level of availability from Day 1. That’s the challenge for all products, not just our own. The [Lockheed Martin] F-35 has had similar issues. We do one program every 30-50 years, and so we raise the bar as much as we can.
