Airbus SE Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury discusses the impact of geopolitical and trade uncertainties on the aviation industry. He also talks about deliveries, supply chain and demand for air travel, as well as Europe’s increased push for spending in the defense sector. He is joined by Bloomberg's Guy Johnson.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
Bloomberg Talks curates top interviews from around Bloomberg News. Hear conversations with the biggest names in finance, politics and entertainment. On Bloomberg Talks, we round up interview...
Questions asked in this interview
9
1:20Does that put a little bit of a cloud over what's going to happen here?
1:53How confident are you in the targets you're setting yourself right now?
2:40Is it getting more uncertain or less uncertain?
3:11I where is it right now that you're facing the challenges right now?
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Good morning, Lizzy. Yeah, let's just set the scene as we start the Paris Air Show this year. As you say, it is likely to be affected by a number of external factors. The most obvious one, of course, is what has just happened in India. That means that the CEO of Boeing is not going to be here. It obviously casts a very long shadow over events at the show. You've also got the conflict in the Middle East as well, and that's going to cast a long shadow as well. Maybe some of the news, some of the announcements that we were expecting coming from the show may not appear, may get pushed a little bit to the right, maybe coming a little bit later. So, there's a number of factors that are impacting the show that are obvious, but there's a number of factors that are still impacting what is happening within aerospace more broadly that is maybe slightly longer in duration. There's still a supply chain problem. We're still worrying about what is happening with the tariff store. We don't understand yet what the visibility around that all looks like. And there's also the factor of the dollar as well. The depreciating dollar is something you need to bear in mind. When an industry prices most of its products in dollars and you see a significant change, that is a factor. So there's a lot to talk to Guillaume Faury about. He is of course the president of GEFAS, the French Aerospace Association. He's hosting this event. He is of course as well the CEO of Airbus. Good morning.
Is it going to be a quiet show? Like there's so many things going on at the moment. Does that put a little bit of a cloud over what's going to happen here?
I think the accident last week obviously was a very tragic event. We're all working hard in this industry for this not to happen. So when it happens, it's a big setback. But yes, we have a slow start in the show. But I think it will be a good show. As you rightly said, plenty of uncertainties and difficulties, but also some mega trends. More and more people traveling, very strong demand for air travel and therefore a lot of activity for industry.
You talk about the uncertainty, Thomas, your CFO was saying the other day, I think it was on Friday, talking about the idea that maybe that there isn't the visibility on buybacks right now because of the uncertainty that exists right now within the industry. Like how much uncertainty is there? How much visibility do you have? How confident are you in the targets you're setting yourself right now?
Well, we have plenty of contradictions to manage. We have a very strong backlog of signed contracts. Customers expecting those aircraft to be delivered. So we have pressure on deliveries. We have a challenging situation for supply chain coming out of COVID. Now with the uncertainties on trade and also on conflicts around the world so we're pushing hard to be able to fulfill our obligations toward our customers. They count on us. But it's an uncertain world. So we have also to...
I think it's a contradiction. It's full of contradictions. Mega trends are there, demand for air travel is there. That's a fact. It's growing. So, we have to serve that demand. But on the other hand, yes, on the short term on the supply chain management, on the way conflicts are impacting the supply chain and our ability to do business, it's becoming more challenging. So, there's probably more difficulties to do business, but the reasons the fundamentals of business are very strong.
What are the challenges right now? What do you not have enough of? I we've talked in the past about engines. Do you not have enough of those? Seats, toilets. I where is it right now that you're facing the challenges right now?
I mean the uncertainties that are weighing on us are trade. Obviously tariffs. What is the next steps? What is going to happen with tariffs? Going down, escalating. Is it going down or is it escalating? We don't know. So we have to make different scenarios.
We have to make different scenarios and be resilient to different scenarios. It's not about thinking. It's about preparing. It's about being resilient. That's the world we're living in.
13 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Faury, G. (2025, June 16). Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO Talks Demand, Tariffs Impact, European Defense | Bloomberg Talks [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Podcasts. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1144437/
MLA
Guillaume Faury. "Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO Talks Demand, Tariffs Impact, European Defense | Bloomberg Talks." Bloomberg Podcasts, 16 Jun. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1144437/.
BibTeX
@misc{faury2025_1144437,
author = {Guillaume Faury},
title = {Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO Talks Demand, Tariffs Impact, European Defense | Bloomberg Talks},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Podcasts. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {jun},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1144437/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
