Airbus marketing analyst David Forrester realised his childhood dream of being at the sharpend of civil aviation, and has played key role in the airframer's sales drive for the A350 XWB
How did you get involved in the aviation industry?
I grew up in London, so as a boy used to see all the aircraft coming in and out of Heathrow and City airports. I loved watching all the different aircraft types and was fascinated by the old 747s and Concorde. Add to this many visits to Biggin Hill air shows, and I knew from an early age that I wanted to work closer to aircraft. So after completing my studies, I was keen to take up an opportunity to work for Airbus.
What qualifications do you need to become a marketing analyst?
The majority of my colleagues have, like myself, a degree in aerospace engineering. This gives a broad technical understanding of flight and aircraft design, so provides useful knowledge when studying aircraft performance, or presenting an aspect of the aircraft to a customer.
Many of us then have a Masters degree in a more business related subject - I studied on Cranfield's Air Transport Management course. This gives you a good commercial and financial understanding of airline operations, meaning you are better equipped to open discussion with the customer.
What experience or skills do you need?
A lot of us at Airbus start working in marketing quite young actually, either straight out of university, or with only a few years in the industry. The key attributes are an ability to use or analyse numbers, and the ability to speak publicly. Apart from a good level of English, the majority of us speak one or more additional languages. The majority of aircraft analytical skills, comparison techniques and tools get taught to us during quite an extensive training programme, along with building knowledge and confidence in presenting.
What constitutes a typical day?
I like to come in each day and look at the newspapers, to see what's happening in the world, and to follow latest industry developments. Then I'll knuckle down to work on the airline or project of the moment. This normally involves running some calculations of aircraft performance: fuel burn; route feasibility; take-off capability. Often adding in some operating economics or maintenance figures to complete the picture. You then have to take these complex results and incorporate them into a presentable storyboard, interwoven with PowerPoint slides describing the aircraft, or highlighting key technology or cabin features. Often you'll need help from product, technical or cabin specialists to make sure you're presenting the correct material. You also need to keep in contact with the sales team so that you can plan the studies and get the results ready for the customer.
What are the best parts of your job?
I've been lucky over the past year and worked on many air shows. This has been a great opportunity to meet aviation people and hear what they think of our products. I've also been responsible for the promotional tools for these air shows, so have had a diverse workload designing one of our cutaway models with specialist model makers, and in writing and filming the storyline for our recent total-immersion A350 XWB cinema. These have been complex, but interesting projects that have allowed me to see many different aspects of marketing. I guess at such a young age it is rare to get this kind of responsibility, so in addition to all the travel we do, it's not a bad job!
And the toughest?
There are an incredible amount of variables in aircraft studies: layouts; weight build-ups; operating conditions; economics assumptions. This presents a number of challenges, such as making sure all the results and presentations correspond to the frequent refinements of operating assumptions.
Source: Flight International
