Airbus has hired one of Europe's top arms executives to head its EUR10 billion (USD$13 billion) project to build the Airbus A350.
Airbus on Wednesday appointed Didier Evrard, head of product lines at European missiles maker MBDA as well as director of its French subsidiary, head of the A350 program as the airliner enters a six year industrial development phase.
Airbus parent EADS approved the plans to build the midsize, long-haul addition to the Airbus fleet in late 2006, after a lengthy process involving successive redesigns to make up for disappointing preliminary sales against the Boeing 787.
The A350 is due to enter service in 2013, compared with 2008 for the 787, whose maiden test flight is due this year.
EADS owns 37.5 percent of MBDA, a relative of Airbus which emerged from the same Aerospatiale stable in a 2001.
Evrard is seen as the driving force behind the Anglo-French Storm Shadow/SCALP air-launched cruise missile, which recently won a EUR910 million order from France for a new version to equip its stealth frigates and nuclear submarines.
He was also credited with helping to overcome difficulties in the past year with MBDA's Meteor air-to-air missile, which failed in its initial test firing in early 2006.
An engineer formed at arms firm Matra and then Aerospatiale following their 1999 merger, Evrard's early duties included building France's Apache missile -- designed to blow up runways.
His new job is to position for take-off a new passenger jet that analysts say Airbus sorely needs to avoid losing the most lucrative part of the civil market to Boeing for years to come.
Above all, the soft-spoken engineer's biggest task will be to ensure the A350 is built on time and within budget, avoiding a repeat of calamitous delays which sliced into both the profits and credibility of Airbus's A380 superjumbo project last year.
"He is an absolute operations man; he has huge attention to detail," said a source close to MBDA.
"Prior to MBDA, he brought the Aerospatiale and Matra sides together. From a projects and cultural point of view, he has the total respect of the work force."
Airbus said his appointment would take effect immediately.
The A350 project, on which many analysts say Airbus' future as a heavyweight global rival to Boeing depends, previously came under the wing of Airbus strategy chief Olivier Andries.
Although it has yet to announce 2006 figures, analysts say it lost its crown to Boeing in the annual order race for civil airliners in 2006 for the first time since 2000.
Evrard's appointment is the most significant from within the EADS group since former Aerospatiale chief Louis Gallois brought in the head of Eurocopter, Fabrice Bregier, as operations chief following his own appointment as Airbus president last year.
One of Gallois' first acts on taking over as the joint chief executive of parent EADS, several months before adding direct control of Airbus, was to visit the MBDA missiles operations.
