Yesterday, Airbus announced 15000 job cuts from its Commercial Aerospace business as part of the ongoing battle to survive the Covid-19 crisis.
The announcement was not unexpected although seeing the numbers in print was always going to be bleak.
When I originally joined the aerospace industry in 1997, I recall the consensus view at the time was that aerospace was cyclical. There were seven fat years and seven lean years, like in Old Testament times in Egypt. When I was applying to universities I made a visit to Southampton. A professor there told me that since the airlines would soon be refleeting and the industry was in a good place, he thought it was a good time for me to join. However after seeing in my UCAS personal statement that I was interested in history as well as engineering he openly told me that he thought I would be better off going into marketing!
At the time I went for my interview for the undergraduate apprentice scheme at British Aerospace Airbus division, the first major coverage of the A3XX had appeared in the press and Airbus had won a major order for single aisle aircraft with British Airways. It seemed like an exciting time to be joining. During 2000, I was around half way through my studies at Cambridge when A3XX became A380.
In 2001, I was in the control room of the wind tunnel in Filton on a summer placement when one of my colleagues told me that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. The devastation of the terror attacks that day was the first major crisis I’d seen in aerospace. I was fortunate that with another year left of my degree and as I was already on the undergraduate apprentice scheme I didn’t feel a direct impact. For some of my colleagues who graduated in 2001 it was a different experience – one of my peers had gained a licence for driving HGVs through being in the OTC at university and spent a year driving lorries until the aerospace industry started recruiting again!
In my early career, there were frequent reminders that the industry had its ups and downs. Older colleagues had arrived in Filton from working at sites in Hatfield and Weybridge that were now closed. A retirement presentation for one engineer covered the time in the early 80s when he’d worked as a house painter for several years during an aviation downturn.
Ironically, the worst period I can recall was not an aviation industry downturn but the difficult phase during the delayed entry into service of the A380. There were major changes in senior management and the sale of the manufacturing operations at Filton to GKN.
Yet in spite of this, the industry and its engineers always seemed to bounce back. The consistent trend has been for aviation passengers to double every 15 years. This model worked despite blips after the first Gulf War, 9/11, SARS and the 2008 financial crisis.
In the case of Covid-19, the situation is undoubtedly worse. 90% of the world’s aircraft were not flying at the height of the lockdown – and this has had a knock on effect throughout the whole industry. The outlook is that this time it will take several years to recover to 2019 levels and the reality is that most businesses, whether they are airlines, airframe or engine manufacturers or SME suppliers will not survive unless they can keep enough cashflow to operate.
The industry also has existential threats beyond the immediate threat of Covid-19. The twenty year forecasts of both Boeing and Airbus foresaw the largest growth in aerospace will be in the Asia Pacific region. This is dominated by island based civilisations and areas where the geography and environment do not lend themselves to high speed rail. (Rainforest, swamps, volcanoes). To meet this demand and the ACARE 2050 agreement for cutting CO2 and NOx, decarbonisation and zero emission aircraft have to be developed. This will have to happen even if air travel in Western Europe eventually turns out to have peaked in 2019.
In the near 23 years I’ve been in the industry, I’ve worked on research into laminar flow. I’ve participated in transonic wind tunnel tests at ETW. I’ve designed aerodynamic surfaces for the A350-1000. I’ve supported flight tests for the A350-900 ULR, A350-1000 and BLADE. Whatever happens next, it’s been a great adventure so far.