Airbus // Universal Registration Document 2023
1. Information on the Company’s Activities
1.1 Presentation of the Company
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1.1.3 Helicopters
Airbus Helicopters is a global leader in the civil and military rotorcraft market, offering one of the most complete and modern ranges of helicopters, drones and related services. This product range currently includes intermediate single-engine, light twin-engine, medium and medium-heavy rotorcraft, which are adaptable to all kinds of mission types based on customer needs. See “– 1.1.1 Overview” for an introduction to Airbus Helicopters’ portfolio. Ambition & Company Strategy Airbus Helicopters’ purpose is to provide the most efficient VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) products and service solutions to its customers who serve, protect, save lives, connect communities and safely carry passengers in demanding environments. The ambition of Airbus Helicopters is to lead the helicopter business and pioneer new VTOL aircraft for a sustainable future. In this regard, the strategy of Airbus Helicopters is to preserve its leadership in the Civil & Parapublic market, improve its market share and resilience in the growing military market, while preparing the future of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and 1. Customer Loyalty: Airbus Helicopters ambition is to grow in the value chain of its customers and become the first obvious choice for the market over the next five years. To execute this priority, a special focus is to improve fleet availability, especially for its military customers. Further, Airbus Helicopters is committed to improving the end-to-end customer experience by delivering a true premium service in terms of quality and communication, while also adapting its global contract offer (from the HCare catalogue) to the customer’s profile. Finally, investing in stock and new repair capacities is key to strengthening the trust of customers. 2. Innovation: Airbus Helicopters has the objective of making helicopters and VTOL flight safer, simpler, more affordable and citizen friendly. Airbus Helicopters is committed to achieving first flights for key demonstrators, along with progressing on the certification path towards autonomy and disruptive technological developments that will pave the way for new VTOL solutions such as City Airbus NextGen. In addition, innovation covers connectivity and digital applications to serve current and future customers with more efficient and mature solutions, especially in the military field. One example consists in developing the Manned-Unmanned Teaming concept to pair helicopters with drones. 3. Defence & Security: Airbus Helicopters acts as a global player in the military market to reinforce its competitiveness and resilience. Airbus Helicopters is investing in key developments to support home nations while reinforcing its presence and influence in export countries in order to increase its market share. The product policy of Airbus Helicopters is driven by the willingness to offer and maintain the broadest dual range of products among OEMs, perceived as a fundamental advantage by its customers. exploring new businesses. The strategic priorities are:
4. Sustainability: Airbus Helicopters wants to accelerate its commitment to pioneering sustainable aerospace. The Company is engaged and committed to its decarbonisation route by taking more ambitious steps to reduce the environmental footprint of its products, and to reduce its Scope 1 and Scope 2 industrial emissions. On top of it being a duty for each and every business to contribute positively to a more desirable future, Airbus Helicopters considers sustainability as an opportunity for the company and for its customers in terms of increased efficiency, attractiveness, resilience and competitive advantage. Transformation The Company is pursuing its journey for its transformation. While maintaining its focus on aviation safety and quality, specific attention is put on performance improvement with lead time reduction and on time deliveries in order to enhance customer satisfaction. Airbus Helicopters continues to refine and execute its transformation plan in order to achieve sustainable performance and be agile in order to maintain its competitiveness in the face of market evolution and economic conditions, and retain its ability to invest in the future. This plan is combining projects aiming to make significant steps forward in performance in key areas ( e.g. on supply chain and spare parts) and implementing further continuous improvement initiatives. In parallel Airbus Helicopters is preparing its next transformation phase, after 2025, to anticipate and prepare the future. Airbus Helicopters continues to deploy data governance and accelerate its digital transformation based on standard capabilities to deliver digital continuity for integrated data-driven processes. A specific focus in 2024 will be on data quality, in order to have solid foundations to deploy new “data-driven” technologies. Commitment to Innovation In 2023, Airbus continued to invest in R&T and product development for both the civil and military markets. Airbus Helicopters’ FlightLab successfully tested an electric flight control system in preparation of a new human machine interface (HMI) that will equip CityAirbus NextGen, Airbus’ eVTOL prototype. The pilot controls were considerably simplified thanks to the enhanced piloting assistance provided by the electric flight control system. Marking a first in the helicopter industry, one single piloting stick replaces the three conventional pilot controls (cyclic, pedals, collective) and is able to control all aircraft axes. The single stick takes up less space, offers improved visibility to the pilot and is combined with a revised HMI which uses simple displays, providing a selection of information specifically tailored to eVTOLs. Following this successful Fly-by-Wire flight trials, Airbus Helicopters, in partnership with Airbus UpNext were able to test advanced autonomous features through a project code-named Vertex. These technologies are controlled by a touchscreen tablet and aim to simplify mission preparation and management, reduce helicopter pilot workload, and further increase safety. Vertex was tested between October and November and was able to demonstrate a fully automated flight from lift-off, taxi, takeoff, cruise, approach and then landing by following a predefined route.
Airbus Annual Report
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Universal Registration Document 2023
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