The current economic environment for the aerospace and airline industries is so extreme that it is "a joke", says Airbus chief executive Noel Forgeard. The crisis demands "imagination" for solutions.
The war in Iraq followed the slump after 11 September and before the war even finished, the airline industry in Asia-Pacific was mauled by the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus, says Forgeard, surveying the economic scene on the eve of Paris.
Overstated"In the case of SARS, its impact was on the only area of civil aviation that was growing," he says.
"I believe the seriousness of this has been overstated by the media but it is my hope that the world can come to a more measured assessment of it.
"The airline industry is in a structural crisis. The structure of fares has changed," he says. "We have a lot more low-cost carriers but all of the traffic in the world will not be low cost. There will be a majority of traffic that will be normal fares.
"At the same time passengers are demanding new services on board and new layouts [of cabins]. I am convinced that there is a big work of the imagination to do by the airline industry."
Forgeard says he is convinced that Airbus is better prepared to weather the recession than its competitors (see separate story).
Source: Flight Daily News
