editorial/ cover story - Air World

AVIATION NEWS
and Kansai—is also focused on
improving its competitiveness by
reducing costs. Narita is clearly
feeling the competition from
Haneda. And cost-efficient
infrastructure will be an even
more important driver of the
success of the many point-topoint
airlines that it is trying to
attract, than it is for the network
carriers,” said Tyler.
“As an initial goal, I urge Narita
airport to permanently reduce
landing charges to the 2009
discounted level while retaining
rental reductions,” said Tyler. In
2005, Narita reduced landing
charges by 11%. Further
reductions in landing and rental
charges were granted in 2009 on
a temporary basis until March
2011. While rental reductions
have been retained, landing
charges were increased back to
levels of the 2005 agreement.
“It would be great news for
aviation—and the Japanese
economy—if none of Japan’s
airports were on the top 10 most
expensive airports list by my next
visit. Everyone who lives, works
or does business in Japan should
have an interest in this. Japan’s
main airports are its gateway to
the world. Cost-efficiently
facilitating that basic
connectivity will help to make all
of Japan more competitive,” said
Tyler.
Comment on Japan Airlines Re-
Listing
Speaking on the same day as
Japan Airlines re-listed on the
Tokyo Stock Exchange, Tyler
made the following comment: “I
wish Japan Airlines well. JAL’s
rehabilitation is a reminder of the
resilience of the aviation
industry. The government and all
involved should be congratulated
for a quick process. The
challenge now is ensure a fair and
equal opportunity for all Japanese
carriers to be successful.”
Airbus
strengthens
leadership
position with
more efficient
organisation
A more agile set-up to boost
entrepreneurial spirit
In line with its 2020 Vision,
Airbus lays out its plans for a
more efficient and agile
organisation to be implemented
by January 2013.
This new organisation aims to
boost Airbus’ overall
performance by shortening the
lines of command, thus making
the company more agile and
capable of taking and
implementing decisions faster. A
more entrepreneurial spirit is
promoted at plant level with a
strong focus on deliveries - on
time, quality and cost.
New ways of working are
defined, empowering
multifunctional teams at Airbus
sites with engineering,
procurement operations and
quality being integrated at plant
level. In order to increase
simplicity, all engineering teams
will be regrouped under one
single leadership.
“This new organisation will help
us to strengthen our leadership
position,” said Fabrice Brégier,
President and Chief Executive
Officer. “We are now ready to
give more empowerment and onthe-spot
decision-making to our
local teams in order to scrap
bureaucracy and shorten lines of
command. Boost agility,
efficiency and speed and meeting
our high customers’ expectations
is the overriding driver for us.
This new organisation has all the
ingredients to take our business
excellence to the next level.”
Customer focus, innovation and
quality are already key elements
of Airbus’ DNA. The “first time
right” approach is going to be
strengthened by integrating the
quality function at plant level.
Supplier management will be
further enforced by creating a
procurement operations function.
All the functions within a plant
will deliver as one team under the
leadership of the head of the
plant, with the support of locally
integrated procurement,
engineering, production and
quality teams. As a result, overall
teamwork will become more
important than ever.
DARPA selects
Rockwell
Collins to lead
cyber security
program for
unmanned air
vehicles
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. –
Rockwell Collins has been
selected as the prime contractor
for the unmanned air vehicle
portion of the High-Assurance
Cyber Military Systems
(HACMS) program sponsored by
the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA). The
four-and-half-year contract calls
for Rockwell Collins to develop
cyber security solutions for
unmanned air vehicles, with
applicability to other networkenabled
military vehicles.
John Borghese, vice president of
the Rockwell Collins Advanced
Technology Center, said the
company's expertise in security
certification of complex systems
and the use of formal methods
was a key in acquiring the
contract. Formal methods are the
application of rigorous
mathematical reasoning and
advanced analysis tools to prove
relevant properties about a
system.
AIR WORLD October 2012-15