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PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus confirmed the appointment of sales chief Christian Scherer as CEO of its core planemaking operation on Tuesday, restoring dedicated leadership of its main business for the first time in four years as it steps up jet production.
The world’s largest planemaker said that group CEO Guillaume Faury, who has combined the job of running the wider company with the jetliner business since 2019, said the move would free him to steer the group in a “fast-evolving global environment”.
Scherer’s appointment as Commercial Aircraft CEO, first reported by Reuters, will take effect from Jan. 1 after discussions with unions, Airbus said.
The shake-up propels a company veteran to effective number two of Europe’s largest aerospace group Europe’s largest aerospace group, allowing Faury to focus on the group’s wider portfolio amid uncertainties over its future in space and the pace of development of a new fighter.
The appointment of Scherer, 61, heralds broad continuity inside the main commercial arm, which competes with Boeing (NYSE:BA) and makes up about 70% of the company’s revenues.
It comes at a time when the aerospace industry faces widespread disruption in the global supply chain.
Airbus shares rose 0.2% in a slightly weaker market.
Scherer, who is currently chief commercial officer, said Airbus would meet its operational objectives.
Airbus has said it plans to deliver 720 jets this year and raise benchmark single-aisle jet output by about 50% to 75 planes a month by 2026.
Airbus formally merged with its dominant planemaking business in 2018, meaning it combines two separate headquarters and operational functions under one CEO, with the Helicopters and Defence & Space divisions sitting underneath.
The shake-up brings back a separate planemaking CEO under the same roof but the company does not appear to be re-creating two entities, something that had created a stage for chronic in-fighting in the past. Airbus insists that era is over.
Faury said in a statement he and Scherer already worked “hand in hand” and that the existing combination of parent group and planemaking business had allowed “alignment and speed of execution during a period of multiple crises and change”.
