Airbus signs commitment charter to support suppliers

Airbus today signed a Commitment Charter towards its suppliers, that aims at reinforcing the links with the whole supply base for long term cooperation to meet the challenges ahead.

In order to ensure a strong and competitive supply chain that is necessary to face these challenges, Airbus is committed to sharing the efforts that are necessary to develop such a turn-around. Suppliers will be more and more integrated in a collaborative mode in the full aircraft development process, from design to after-life recycling, and can therefore count on Airbus in their development through specific support measures, according to their needs.

“Our suppliers are our partners and we are all linked together, depending on each other for our future. A reorganization is necessary to face this future, also in the way we work together”, explained Louis Gallois, Airbus President and CEO. “This Commitment Charter is putting on paper the measures that Airbus will put in place to accompany the whole supply base, whatever their origin. This will make us all stronger and better prepared for the next decades to ensure good business prospects”, he added.

Airbus’ commitment to suppliers includes providing them with more visibility on Airbus’ production plans, developments and business perspectives. This also means giving advice on the creation of a long-term oriented network of strong Tier 1 partners, sharing in the development, investments and costs and sub-tier suppliers integration. As our products overall optimization requires more and more large aircraft components approaches, Airbus will encourage the smaller sized or more specialized suppliers to transform themselves towards the creation of structured, more flexible alliances, allowing them to become strong platforms, alongside the Tier 1 partners.

The overall objective is to pursue and improve a long term partnership with our suppliers.