For the first time, Airbus handed over a plane to a company with an e-delivery due to the Covid crisis. The opportunity to dive behind the scenes of the delivery of an airplane, one of the Toulouse firm’s best kept secrets.
This is a top secret subject at Airbus. The secrets of the delivery of a new device are among the best kept by the aeronautical group. Behind the splendor of the ceremonies organized with great fanfare in the delivery center of Toulouse, hides a millimeter process. Because you don’t buy a plane like a car. This well-oiled mechanism enabled Airbus to deliver 863 aircraft in 2019, an unprecedented rate. In 2020, with the 33% drop in rates, 500 devices should be delivered to Toulouse, Hamburg, Tianjin in China, Mobile in the USA and Montreal.
But now, the coronavirus crisis has complicated this final step in the manufacturing process of an aircraft. During March, Guillaume Faury, the boss of Airbus, revealed that sixty planes could not be physically delivered to customers. Travel restrictions around the world have prevented many companies from picking up their planes.
So Airbus has accelerated the digitalization of aircraft delivery. For the first time in the history of aeronautics, the Turkish company Pegasus has just taken delivery of three A320 NEOs thanks to a 100% digital process. For each aircraft, only two pilots moved to return the aircraft. Once manufacturing is complete and after quality inspection, the aircraft is handed over by final assembly line teams to Airbus delivery teams. This is the “hand over” procedure.
“Like a notary”
The client company then sends its teams of technicians to check the perfect condition of the aircraft, both technically and aesthetically (paint, cabin finish, etc.). “The standard is a team of around ten people for a company but that can go up to forty” specifies Alain Vilanove, director of delivery contracts at Airbus. The inspectors carry out visual checks on the ground, the “airplane tour” to identify reserve points if necessary after having tested the systems (flaps, etc.), the engine thrust and carried out one or more acceptance flights. These flights last two to three hours for an A320 and four to five hours for a long-haul flight and allow the company’s pilots to ensure the perfect behavior of the aircraft. Kerosene is the responsibility of Airbus.
Like Pegasus, a company may even decide to delegate this inspection phase to Airbus or a third party. “The designated person then takes on the client’s outfit and is given the acceptance phase. This is proof of a great deal of trust with our clients” describes Alain Vilanove. Then comes the most confidential part: the contractual phase. More prosaically, it is the payment of the final invoice and the delivery of the title deed. It is this part which has been fully digitalized by Airbus and which allows airlines to no longer physically travel to Airbus delivery centers.
“This is an additional facility that we are offering them”, says Airbus. For those who still want to come during the health crisis, Airbus has privatized its Leadership University hotel in Blagnac to accommodate crews, technicians and financiers according to the highest standards of hygiene. “Digitalized, this meeting does not take more than an hour. The client is at home connected to my videoconference teams. Everything happens like an electronic signature at a notary” illustrates Alain Vilanove. This brings together virtually the Airbus teams and the client company with its banker. When the parties have agreed on the reserve letter with the final details to be settled (touch-ups on the aircraft, etc.), the client electronically signs the acceptance certificate for the aircraft.
Then comes the payment phase. The price of an airplane is paid as in the construction of a new building: by installment. A percentage at the signing of the purchase contract, an additional tranche at the start of assembly, during the installation of the engines … So that the day of final delivery 70 to 80% of the price has already been settled. For the balance, which amounts to several tens of millions of dollars for an A320 billed in the catalog, $ 110 million, the company orders a transfer in favor of Airbus. Often money travels through several continents of Asia to the USA, then Dublin and finally to Airbus accounts. A transfer which takes about thirty minutes. As soon as the finance department confirms that the funds have been received, title to the property is transferred. The convoy flight can then take place to bring the plane back to safe harbor.
–
