Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury believes that, in the long run, China and the West will diminish their mutual reliance, but that economic relations will not be severed.
"I think a break-up of economic areas is unthinkable," he said. "I don't think that is a realistic scenario."
With its own production, Airbus has a 50% market share in China. "We want to expand," Faury said, "and I see a good basis for that because our products are in demand in the country."
In 1994, Airbus launched its first official presence in China. Airbus' Chinese business has seen remarkable expansion since then, with the company increasing the number of commercial jetliners delivered to the country by a factor of 50 in less than two decades.
Airbus recognizes the importance that good collaborations with local Chinese enterprises give, despite its headquarters being half a world away. A composite manufacturing center in Harbin is one example of these collaborations, while in Beijing alone, there is an engineering center, a customer support center that can dispatch 25,000 spare parts to airlines in the Asia-Pacific region, and a training center with six full-flight simulators for the A320 and A330/A340 jetliner families, as well as the A350 and the H225 helicopter.
China is on track to become the world's greatest aviation market in the future, and Airbus intends to be there every step of the way. The business wants to supply 2,000 planes to the country by 2020, increasing its market share to more than 50%.
He downplayed the latest Paris-Berlin tensions. "From my point of view, the exchange is intense but good," he said of recent tensions between the French and German governments over energy policy. "Everyone involved knows that."
Guillaume Faury is a businessman and engineer from France. He is the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the aerospace corporation Airbus SE, as well as the Chairman of its civil aircraft division, Airbus SAS. For 10 years, Faury was the chief engineer of the EC225/H225, responsible for heavy helicopter flight tests at Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters). He finally rose to the position of executive vice president of research and development (R&D).
Guillaume was previously President of Airbus' Commercial Aircraft segment and Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Helicopters (2013-2018). Among his accomplishments were the restructuring of manufacturing systems and the introduction of new technologies.
Guillaume has had a lifelong fascination with flight and aviation. He has 1,300 hours of flying experience as a trained light-aircraft pilot and helicopter flight-test engineer. Guillaume attended the école Polytechnique in Paris and the école Nationale Supérieure d'Aéronautique et de l'espace in Toulouse.
