Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury Reveals Plans for New-Generation Narrowbody

The first Paris Air Show in four years comes at a pivotal time for Airbus. Demand for commercial aircraft is surging, as are supply chain and production delays. At the same time, Airbus is gearing up to develop new conventional and hydrogen-powered aircraft for the second half of the 2030s. The Russia-Ukraine war is affecting almost all parts of the industry and has led to a new sense of urgency in European defense policy. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury discussed current challenges and the road ahead with Senior European Defense Editor Tony Osborne and Executive Editor for Commercial Aviation Jens Flottau.

• Airbus is strongly engaged in open-rotor studies with CFM International
• More partners for Future Combat Air System are needed

AW&ST: Airbus has been very public about its plans for a hydrogen aircraft. But to get to the net-zero emissions target by 2050, you will need a new, more efficient conventional aircraft at some point. What are your plans in this space? The net-zero road map relies on a number of necessary steps. There is very little room for not reaching milestones. The first one is that we need to significantly accelerate the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) in the short term, and reaching 10% [of fuel demand] by 2030 seems to be a necessary condition for where we need to be in 2050. We also need planes that are burning far less fuel than the previous generation.

What aircraft parameters are you working toward? We need a new generation of planes. We are preparing all the technologies for the plane, the production system, the digitalization of the plane and for using data to be able to fly the planes better. We have to be at 100% of SAF or close to 100% of SAF by 2050, not only technically but commercially as well. [This means having] planes that can fly economically under these conditions. We need aircraft that burn around 20-25% less fuel than what we are using today with the A320neo or the A321neo. That’s why we are preparing entry into service in the second half of next decade targeting 2035, maybe between 2035 and 2040.

Can you get away without interim steps before introduction of that new aircraft? Twelve years is a very long time. Well, no, it’s not a long time. The [Boeing] 737 started 50 years ago; the A320 entered the market 30 years ago. We are preparing the replacement of platforms, not upgrades. This is not going from A320 to [A320neo] or from the [737NG] to the MAX. Even though it seems like a lot of time, it means a launch of the program in 2027 or 2028, maybe 2030 at the latest. And we are just years away from those days where we need to have the technologies, all the partners ready, the suppliers [and] the industrial setup. That’s why we’ve been working a lot on the industrial setup at Airbus and why we are deploying [Digital Design, Manufacturing and Services] not only at Airbus but also at [aerostructures affiliates] Atlantic and Aerostructures.

Is the open-rotor engine a viable option for you? We want it to be a valuable option. And we’re working very closely with CFM to look at all the dimensions of flight or integration—of performance, of certification and so on—to decide whether this is a viable option or not. CFM strongly believes it’s viable. Our teams believe it is likely to be viable, but there are still a number of boxes that need to be ticked. We will be flight-testing the open alternative and will be working a lot on simulation and computation with CFM to look at all the dimensions of what it has to deliver, but yes, we consider it to be a promising technology.

Will the aircraft be comparable to an A320neo or A321neo in terms of size, speed and payload/range capabilities? It will come very close in terms of flight envelope—the range will be even better, [and] fuel burn is going to be excellent. Obviously, the diameter of the [open rotor] is bigger. There are new constraints in terms of integration and certification [as well as] managing vibration, noise, acoustics [and] stability. The [constraints] are more complex, but there are potential solutions as well. There are benefits, and there are topics to be addressed and to be validated.

If you go for open rotor, this would likely mean a single-source engine, right? It’s clear that an open-rotor architecture is very specific compared to a traditional one. And therefore, as of today, we don’t see a plane compatible with both open-rotor and classical architecture. It will be either single-source—which is what we do on the widebodies at Airbus—or what Boeing is doing with CFM on the 737. Or the engine-maker that is less visible today than CFM on open rotor would also go for that architecture if it is selected by one of the OEMs.

If you launched an A220-500, could you still go with a Pratt engine, or would you have to open it up to additional sources given the durability issues Pratt currently has on the geared turbofan? We are very happy with the dual-engine configuration we have on the A320neo. So if we could over time on the A220 have a dual-engine option—especially with a new variant being the -500—that’s one thing we would really like to see. The Pratt engine on the A220 is delivering excellent performance and economics. The engine is reliable, but the engine is not durable. The time on wing is not OK, and Pratt is working hard to solve those problems. The Pratt engine is not the only new-generation engine that has poor durability, but it’s more visible on the Pratt engine than on the others because they have gone so low in terms of [maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO)] and spare capacity during COVID. Now they are missing MRO capacities and spare parts, and it’s impacting the in-service fleet. That’s the main difference.

Does the industry rely too much on SAF plans that may not be realistic? We need to continue to reduce fuel burn to afford the price of e-fuels in the 2030s and 2040s. SAF is significantly more expensive than kerosene and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Today, airlines that are buying SAF in Europe pay 3.5-5 times more. In the U.S., the [Inflation Reduction Act] is significantly changing the equation. SAF will be 30-100% more expensive than kerosene—significantly cheaper than in Europe but still more expensive. The first decade of SAF will be mainly with biofuels, but we will then reach a plateau at around 10-15% of kerosene [demand] because the feedstock will be missing. We are working with partners on how to accelerate the e-fuels and see significant amounts of e-fuels reaching the market at decent prices in the 2030s. Today, e-fuels are expected to be more expensive than biofuels.

Some people have interpreted the fact that you talk about a new narrowbody as an indication that you are slowly walking away from hydrogen. What do you tell them? That is completely wrong. I am absolutely not slowing down or reducing investments in the hydrogen plan. It is exactly the opposite. We are absolutely convinced that hydrogen will have an important role to play starting with short- and midrange aeroplanes. We absolutely want to continue and build the first hydrogen plane in 2035. Hydrogen is the only fuel that we think is appropriate for aviation that can reach that [net-zero] objective, and hydrogen again is one of the products required for e-fuels. It is much cheaper to burn hydrogen directly than this complex fabrication of fuel—with hydrogen and carbon you capture somewhere in the air, then use energy to combine the two in synthetic fuel. Hydrogen, in my view, is absolutely essential for the long-term sustainable aviation that we are calling for. It is absolutely wrong that we are putting more energy in SAF and the next generation of single-aisles to the detriment of hydrogen. Hydrogen is hydrogen. We believe in it. We keep working on it, and we will bring it to the market.

You finally signed the long-awaited agreement on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) late last year, so how do you see the progress? Yes, it took more time to come to an agreement on the workshare of the FCAS than we were expecting. But with hindsight, significant progress has been achieved since 2017-18 when this all started. Then we had to reshuffle the complete workshare across all seven pillars to accommodate the arrival of Spain. But that’s been very fast. Yes, we were frustrated by the fact that we thought we would sign Phase 1B in early 2022 and we signed at the end of 2022, but that was not wasted time. Work is now progressing very smoothly, and the work with Dassault is of outstanding quality.

Don’t forget, FCAS is not just about the new-generation fighter—there are six other pillars, and they have been less controversial because of the way the workshare was managed. Even on the engine side, it was not a walk in the park—the setup between Safran, MTU and ITP Aero was quite complex when ITP joined—but they were less public in the press about their problems.

Does FCAS need more national partners, or should the program wait for exports? Well, I think both. Yes, it was a hell of a lot of work to build those seven pillars with three partners and a complex industrial setup. Given the nature of the program, we must run Phase 1B with the existing partners. But in the long run, I am absolutely convinced we need more industrial partners—just look at the F-35 with its eight partner countries.

We see governments in Europe declaring major increases in defense spending, yet some are slow to spend that money—in the case of Germany. Or in France, the military programming law looks set to delay several major programs, including Airbus-led projects, and accelerate others. What is your view on what is happening here? We are facing a set of contradictions. There are declarations and intentions for more cooperation in Europe, but we see a lot of national programs being accelerated. That’s one contradiction. The other one is governments spending more money in the short term, but almost nothing has changed—except on ammunition; we have seen lots of ammunition orders and some deliveries. But the big programs have not been significantly impacted. When you look at structural decisions, [governments] look at different areas of the battlefield, like cyber, space defense, nuclear deterrence in France or the aircraft carrier. It’s true that there is more money that will be spent, but not necessarily on the existing programs.

Now we believe it is positive that European countries [have] come to the realization that defense and security matter, but they also need to come to the realization that cooperation is a must to be effective. Short-term, many are making fast decisions that consider national needs. So the short term is not necessarily aligned with the bigger narrative. [For] the European initiatives, cooperation will deliver what they can deliver. FCAS is the lighthouse of European cooperation that needs to prove Europe right.

Are the European defense initiatives—the European Defense Fund (EDF) and Permanent Structured Cooperation—delivering on their goals? What is your view on those? I think those European initiatives are reflecting the right intentions—the sincere will of European countries to create schemes to better cooperate on defense. But I think they suffer from the complexity of Europe and sometimes from the other bureaucratic terms and conditions for using those devices. They need to be improved over time. But that is not going to be easy, and that will take time. We’ve seen a lot of national initiatives linked to Ukraine that have proven to be fast, and that is one of the tensions I see on these initiatives. The [European Defense Industrial Development Program], the EDF and others are quite complex and sometimes bureaucratic and therefore quite slow to use. But we need to learn to improve them to make them more efficient so that they really deliver what was the intention at the beginning.

On helicopters, you made your mark with the H160 development; your Eurocopter predecessor Lutz Bertling had the H175. Will current CEO Bruno Even have his own helicopter program to launch? There has long been consideration for a replacement of the Ecureuil (Squirrel) AStar platform, for example. I think Bruno is putting his mark on Airbus Helicopters. It is a very successful company in terms of economics [and] industrial transformation. They are doing well in terms of technological developments and on the military side. But yes, I hope there will be a product coming out one day where Bruno will have some ownership. We’ve seen the first flight of a demonstrator recently, and I think you’re not wrong in your thinking. This is an area where you should keep monitoring what’s happening.