Thales is braced for another 18 months of difficult trading conditions, with no upturn expected until the second quarter of 2005, says John Hughes, executive vice-president and chief executive of Thales' aerospace and information technology services business.
"I don't see any driver for an improvement," he says. "We're sitting on the back of an economic downturn, 11 September, the war in Iraq and SARS - that's a lot really."
Despite the black clouds, the company is busy across its three core businesses of air traffic management (ATM), avionics and simulation.
In terms of ATM, it continues to be a world leader, supplying systems to Australia, Ireland, Scandinavia, France and Italy among others. "We have to take the long-term view on the future of air traffic management," Hughes says. "We have to look towards 2020, but we also have to provide an infrastructure that will allow the industry to move from where we are now."
Alliance
Thales has been hard at work behind the scenes with the Air Traffic Alliance it formed with EADS and Airbus. A pact between the Alliance and Boeing was also announced yesterday to develop common standards for future air traffic management.
Hughes says the main differentiator between Thales and its competitors is the cross-over between its military and commercial businesses. "We exploit the duality between the two domains. In the simulator market, for example, we have been able to take what we learn from the military markets and apply it to the commercial sector and vice versa," says Hughes.
"We now have about 40% of the market for high-end commercial simulators, such as used on Boeing 7x7 and Airbus models, and have used that experience to develop technologies such as military combat simulation systems, including synthetic battlefield environments for the Australian Ministry of Defence."
Source: Flight Daily News
