Airbus Selects Guillaume Faury As Next Chief Executive Officer

PARIS (Alliance News) - Airbus SE announced Monday that its board has selected its head of commercial aircraft, Guillaume Faury, to succeed Tom Enders as chief executive when the latter steps down in April.

The 50-year-old Frenchman's promotion - which will be put to a meeting of shareholders on April 10 for approval - caps a series of top management changes at Airbus after a turbulent few years.

The European aircraft manufacturer has been roiled by corruption probes in Britain, France, and Germany.

Profits have also been hit by delays in the delivery of engines for its new generation of medium-range passenger jets and by a series of technical problems with its A400m military transport plane.

Before taking over as head of commercial aircraft, Faury was in charge of Airbus Helicopters. He also held senior management positions there between 1998 and 2008, when it was known as Eurocopter.

In between, he was vice president for research & development at French carmaker PSA, which makes the Peugeot and Citroen brands.

Enders, who has headed Airbus since 2012, said last December that he would not seek a new term when his mandate expires in April.

This year also saw head of sales John Leahy step down in January, followed the month after by chief operating officer Fabrice Bergier.

Chief finance officer Harald Wilhelm is also due to leave next year.

Troubles with the A400m has seen Airbus write off EUR1.3 billion on its 2017 accounts, following a write-off of EUR2.2 billion in 2016.

The plane had suffered a series of problems including with refuelling techniques and gearboxes.

Delays in the delivery of engines for the new generation of Airbus' workhorse A320 passenger jet have also hit profits.

But the company says it still expects to make adjusted profits of EUR5 billion in 2018, up from EUR4.25 billion last year.

Airbus's troubles in recent years have not just been technical, however.

In February the company accepted an EUR81.3 million penalty from Munich prosecutors to end an investigation into alleged corruption in its sale of Eurofighter aircraft to Austria.

It is also facing probes in Britain and France into previous business practices. It says it has itself reported information about those practices to authorities in both countries.