Aerospace Environmental Pressures

Is there anything else on key questions you are asking yourself or you’d be looking at, as this unfolds, over the next six months, for the engine OEMs and the supply chain?

There is one other topic that I’m watching keenly. The environmental pressures on the aerospace industry have been growing, justifiably so, over the last few years. The Clean Sky Initiative, in Europe, has been encouraging and funding people to develop technologies to reduce the environmental impact of aviation and has been gradually picking up steam and becoming more and more important. But all of a sudden, with no airplanes in the sky, we’re seeing an improvement in the environment. There appears to be pressure from the environmental world and from, depending on the country, the population generally, to not go back to the dirty old ways of last year and to bring in environmental improvement measures, into the fleet, now, so that when we do start flying again, we’re flying cleaner.

From a new technology point of view, I think there is an opportunity, for those organizations involved in developing new technology, to pull them forward in time and, if they can develop them more quickly, then do so and get them into aircraft and engines more quickly, because I think there is going to be a stronger and stronger demand, than before. Those airlines that are operating aircraft, whilst today, people say, well fuel is so cheap, I can financially justify flying an older, dirtier airplane, the social pressure on flying those kind of aircraft, even if they’re economically viable, is going to make airlines think twice about flying them.

I think we’re going to see – and I’m watching to see signs of it and there are already some – the technology being pulled forward, to make our fleets more efficient and, at the same time, social pressure that is going to prevent people from flying the older aircraft. We will see some of the older aircraft that were quite viable, suddenly being grounded. The airplanes of 10 years old might find themselves being broken up.

I think we saw that with the French bail out of Air France where, I think, one of the terms was that they have to upgrade their fleet, to make it more environmentally friendly, which is interesting. I guess that has shifted demand to those more efficient aircraft?

Which goes to support the fact that the OEMs, Airbus and Boeing, despite the situation that we are in at the moment, the demand for the newer, cleaner aircraft is going to continue and be maintained. The world wants to travel but the world wants to travel cleanly. The best way to do that is to bring in the most efficient aircraft you can get and those are the brand-new ones.