Airbus, the troubled French plane-maker part owned by BAE, has removed the head of its A380 superjumbo programme, Charles Champion, two months after admitting damaging delays to the flagship project that wiped billions off its stock market value.
Mr Champion joins former Airbus chief executive Gustav Humbert and Noel Forgeard, the co-head of Airbus’s parent group EADS, as casualties of the A380 woes.
His removal also comes as BAE prepares to press ahead with plans to sell out of its stake in Airbus for substantially less than it was thought to be worth before news of the delays emerged.
Mr Champion, who will stay on as a special adviser to new chief executive Christian Streiff, will be replaced by Mario Heinen, until now the head of Airbus’s single aisle programme. Mr Heinen joined the French group in 1999.
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Mr Heinen’s job will be taken by Alain Flourens, an executive vice-president who is head of Airbus’s “centres of excellence”. Airbus said that under a flatter management structure, the heads of its centres of excellence would report directly to Karl-Heinz Hartmann, the executive vice-president of operations.
Mr Heinen takes control of the A380 as Airbus prepares in earnest to begin production of the super-liner, which will be the largest in the world. It is due to deliver to its first customer, Singapore Airlines, by the end of this year.
Streiff, who on joining the company undertook a thorough review of the A380 together with future plans for the A350, reiterated today that he would disclose his findings at the end of this month.
Today’s top-level management shuffle, Mr Streiff’s first since joining, overshadowed the A380’s first test flight with real passengers, all of them Airbus staff.