Airbus is to establish an engineering centre in India within the next year and a half in its bid to meet ongoing development demand in the face of a shortage of aeronautical engineers in Europe.
Speaking in Paris at the formal launch of its new A350 twinjet, Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert said that the European aircraft manufacturer plans to recruit another 1,200 experienced engineers in the next 18 months to work across all its aircraft programmes.
Humbert said engineering recruitment efforts will soon be stepped up for the A350 as recent bottlenecks on the A380 have demonstrated how easily a shortage of engineers can hamper delivery schedules.
“We will increase our engineering centres in the USA, Moscow and China and probably establish one in India within 12 to 18 months. We [will also] have a lot of engineers running free out of the A380 programme, which will be passing through its certification stages,” said Humbert.
Today, around 160 Airbus design engineers are based in its Wichita, Kansas design centre, which was established in 2002, and another 120 are based at the ECAR engineering centre in Moscow. In April this year Airbus agreed to set up a joint-venture engineering centre in Beijing to recruit 200 engineers by 2008.
Humbert said that in addition to establishing a greater foreign engineering resource, aeronautical industries within those countries could enjoy a much greater A350 risk-sharing role – up to 40% of the aircraft’s development cost.
“At 40%, the risk-sharing partnerships on the A350 will represent a much greater share than on the A380 and will be very much concentrated on the airframe,” said Humbert.
He said the Russian aviation industry has already been invited to contribute up to 3% of the programme costs while China’s contribution could reach 5%.
Airbus executive vice-president programmes, Tom Williams, says that the engineering head count on the A350 will be 500 at the end of 2006 and will peak in 2008 at 4,000 engineers. Headcount at its Wichita design office will also increase by another 50%.
“In terms of our need for high-quality engineering resource we have to work hard to find sufficient talent within Europe,” adds Williams.
AIMEE TURNER/PARIS
Source: Flight International
