Airbus reorganises and Bregier gets COO post
Airbus Group announced on Friday that it will combine all of the company’s separate divisions into one company to cut costs and streamline its businesses as CEO Tom Enders tries to rein in what had been an unwieldy organisation.
Commercial plane chief Fabrice Bregier will take the No. 2 spot under Enders as chief operating officer and will continue in his role as head of the commercial plane unit, which has been renamed Airbus Commercial Aircraft. His title there will be president. As COO Bregier will oversee the entire portfolio of products including helicopters, missiles, satellites and defence electronics. Bregier also becomes the leading candidate to succeed Enders when he steps down.
“The merger of Airbus Group and Airbus paves the way for an overhaul of our corporate set-up, simplifies our company’s governance, eliminates redundancies and supports further efficiencies, while at the same time driving further integration of the entire group,” Enders said in announcing the moves.
The reorganisation will result in job cuts, Airbus acknowledged, and Enders said in a memo to the company’s 137,000 employees that the cuts “are not negligible”, Bloomberg reported. Enders has said in the past that the cuts will not approach the 8,000 that were made over the last 10 years as part of the company’s “Power8” programme.