Tag: AIRBUS

Planemakers Touting “Surge Capacity” Plans

In an analysis, Reuters reports that, with the aerospace industry still struggling “to tame post-COVID disruption,” both Airbus and The Boeing Company leaders had used the term “surge capacity” amid promises to increase factories’ resilience to supply disruptions. Surge capacity can involve expanding factory space and hiring more staff, but “the risk is that when demand slows the added capacity and inventory may no longer be profitable.”
Full Story (Reuters)

Japanese Airlines Make Use of Predictive Maintenance Platforms

Aviation Week reports that Japanese airlines such as All Nippon Airways (ANA) operate a mix of Boeing and Airbus jets. However, due to the advanced age and smaller number of Airbus aircraft in the fleet, the carrier does not use Airbus’s Skywise predictive maintenance program. Instead, ANA utilizes The Boeing Company’s predictive tools including Airplane Health Monitoring, Self-Service Analytics and Insight Accelerator.
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Airbus Is Hiring Thousands of Workers for Aircraft Production Increase

Reuters reports that Airbus is better prepared for the challenge of securing enough people to handle jet production increases than it was before the pandemic, a senior executive said. The European planemaker plans a two-thirds increase in production of best-selling A320neo-family single-aisle jets to 75 a month in 2026 from 45 now. In Germany, its second-largest base, Airbus plans to hire 3,500 staff for the second year in a row to handle the ramp-up and feed projects on decarbonization and industrial systems.
Full Story (Reuters)

Airbus and Boeing Seek High-Skill Talent in India

Bloomberg reports that The Boeing Company and Airbus “are increasingly looking to India for highly-skilled, low-cost engineers to meet a boom in demand for aircraft and expand their manufacturing presence in the world’s fifth-largest economy.” Airbus is looking to hire 1,000 people in India in 2023, out of 13,000 globally. Boeing already employs approximately 18,000 people in India, including its suppliers.
Full Story (Bloomberg)

Aerospace Parts Suppliers Not Yet Able to Support Airbus, Boeing Needs

Reuters reports that The Boeing Company and Airbus both have planned increases in jet output in 2023, but a recent Morgan Stanley survey of the aerospace supply chain industry says that will not be easy. The supply chain sector “seeks to speed up its recovery from a pandemic-led slowdown as a travel boom spurs demand for jets, inflationary pressures and labor availability are impeding their progress and have dampened sentiment, the survey showed.” Labor and parts shortages have blunted Boeing and Airbus from realizing their goals for increased jet production rates, with worker shortages cited as being the “biggest constraint” for suppliers.
Full Story (Reuters)

JUICE Prepares to Explore Jupiter’s Moons

Reuters reported that JUICE – which stands for JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer – “is one of the most important space missions of 2023.” Its aim “is to explore Jupiter’s moons to see if any can be lived on by humans.” The European Space Agency project team “behind JUICE held a major review this week and concluded the mission was ‘go for launch.’” JUICE will take “eight years to get to the giant planet Jupiter – where it will explore three of its moons.” The six-ton spacecraft “will make fly-bys, which means a close approach for observation without landing, of the moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa.” It will then “settle permanently around Ganymede in late 2034.” The aim of the mission “is to find out if any of the moons are habitable and can support life.”
Full Story (Reuters)

Airbus Partners With Nanoracks for Commercial Space Station

Aviation Week reports that Europe’s Airbus Defense and Space “is joining a U.S. partnership led by Voyager Space-owned Nanoracks to develop and operate a commercial space station in low Earth orbit (LEO), one of four NASA-backed projects vying to host government research and commercial ventures after the International Space Station” is transitioned away from.
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Airbus to Research Superconductivity as a Road to Sustainability

Aviation International News reports that Airbus’s multi-path approach “to decarbonization took a new direction last week as the company highlighted recent work on superconductivity technology.” During its two-day Sustainability Summit held in Toulouse and Munich, “the airframer said it has joined with the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in a demonstrator program aimed at promoting the adoption of superconductivity and cryogenics in airborne electrical distribution systems.” CERN’s new project with Airbus, called the Superconductor for Aviation with Low Emissions (SCALE), “will evaluate how engineers can deploy superconductors to achieve greater energy efficiency for future aircraft systems.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)