New chief for Airbus A380 programme: Alain Flourens

Mario Heinen (52) has been appointed Executive Vice President, Head of the trans-national Centre of Excellence (COE) Fuselage and Cabin with immediate effect. This follows the departure of Rüdiger Fuchs who wishes to pursue other opportunities outside of Airbus. With his wide ranging industrial experience, especially in successfully managing the A380 programme in the course of the past two years, and previously the Airbus Delivery Centre and the A320 Family programme, Mr Heinen has all the right competences and expertise to successfully lead this very important COE, which not only encompasses all Airbus civil aircraft programmes, but also the A400M and MRTTs. Furthermore, his intimate knowledge of the A380 will be a great asset to secure full industrialisation of this programme. Mr Heinen had joined Airbus in 1999, coming from Lufthansa Technik, where he served as General Manager Aircraft Maintenance

The new Head of the A380 programme is Alain Flourens (51) who was Executive Vice President in charge of the A320 Family Programme since September 2006. Prior to this, Mr Flourens had been in charge of the previous six COEs across all Airbus sites in Europe. From 1997, he was in charge of the Future Large Aircraft (FLA) to become A400M, being appointed President of Airbus Military in 1999. Alain Flourens had joined former Aérospatiale in 1990 and made all his career within the company in the industrial and manufacturing sector.

Daniel Baubil (52) replaces Alain Flourens as Executive Vice President, Head of the A320 Family Programme. From April 2007, Mr Baubil was Executive Vice President, Deputy Head of Procurement of Airbus, having spent most of his career in the Procurement, Industrial and Commercial sectors of Aerospatiale, and then EADS and Airbus. His experience in these various areas of activities and especially in managing the supply chain, will be a very valuable in the current very steep ramp up of the A320 Family programme. 

Mario Heinen will report to Executive Vice President Operations Gerald Weber, and Alain Flourens and Daniel Baubil will report to Executive Vice President Programmes Tom Williams.

"I want to thank Rüdiger Fuchs for all his efforts and commitments to Airbus in the past years and wish him best success for his future activities", said Airbus President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders on the occasion of the appointments. "I am convinced that the newly appointed executives have the right back-ground and skills to be successful in their new roles. They have my full support as well as that of the Airbus top crew".