Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse leaves stronger than expected
LA TRIBUNE – Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse has just announced a recruitment plan for 130 people in 2023. What are the growth prospects expected by the group in the coming months?
JEROME WALNUT – At the heart of the crisis, we thought we would return to pre-Covid activity by 2024-2025. We will return to this level 12 to 18 months earlier than expected, i.e. from this year 2023. Our turnover has already grown by 29% over one year in 2022 to reach 591 million euros. This is still 12% below pre-Covid activity, but our vision is that in 2023 we will find more or less the 670 million euros in pre-crisis turnover. To support the ramp-up and our projects on low-carbon aircraft, we will effectively recruit 130 employees this year to bring the overall workforce to 1,670 people (currently the group has 1,300 people at its Toulouse site and 200 people at Campsas, editor’s note).
How do you experience this spectacular ramp-up announced by Airbus on the A320NEO?
NATHALIE DUQUESNE- It is already very positive news for the sector to say that demand is still strong. Then, the difficulty is to maintain this rate, reason for which we invested massively. From June, a new industrial building will come out of the ground in Campsas precisely to be able to have the additional production capacity.
We’re also putting a lot of effort into making sure our supply chain is able to keep up. Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse leads discussions with suppliers, can sometimes provide financial assistance, support in terms of resources or organization to this supply chain.
Jerome Walnut – You have to keep in mind that we buy about 60% of what we sell. Our own performance is very much linked to the performance of the number of our suppliers. Occasional aid schemes have been put in place to help them have the cash necessary to get through the crisis but also to meet energy costs.
Precisely what is the impact of the energy crisis on your group? Are you also held back by shortages of certain materials?
Nathalie Duquesne – Indeed, we were impacted last year by titanium supply problems and in particular our sister company in Germany which produces landing gear and which needed titanium blanks. Today, we experience a lot of shortages of raw materials or obsolescence problems of electronic components. Knowing that we are not going to offer any replacement material because we are also required to meet the expectations of the European Reach regulation (which regulates the use of chemical substances in industry, editor’s note). This subject affects the entire aeronautical sector and fortunately it is treated globally by the sector.
On the other hand, we are individually impacted by soaring energy costs. Our bill will be multiplied by five, from three million euros in 2019 to around fifteen million in 2023. This raises a more general issue around the risk of deindustrialization of the country due to this poorly controlled energy cost. We do not have the means to amortize these costs on our sale prices. If we want to participate in this energy transition, this requires support strong state and regions for our sector. Especially since we are still facing international competition. On the US side, strong actions have been taken, in particular through theIinflation Reducation Aside, a plan of 400 billion dollars which has no equivalent today in Europe and even less in France. We pose a risk to industrialization in France in general and to our sector in particular.
The other big challenge, as you said, is the decarbonization of aviation. What projects is Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse currently working on in this area?
Nathalie Duquesne – The sector aeronautics is the only Committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. In the short and medium term, this means replacing kerosene with more sustainable fuels, SAFs. For us, this will probably mean taking less air from the engines and electrifying our systems. In the longer term, we are investing heavily in hydrogen, which can be used in two ways: either hydrogen is used as a conventional fuel directly in aircraft engines, or fuel cells are used with propulsion electric.
We have been producing air compressors to power fuel cells for cars for around twenty years now. We are now studying higher capacity compressors to meet the needs of aeronautics with batteries of several hundred kilowatts. We also decided to invest to produce not only the air compression but the entire fuel cell system. With the arrival of fuel cells, we are also convinced that all aircraft systems will become all-electric and we are working on this electrification.
And then, thermal systems will be key in this decarbonization of the sector. You should know that by producing 100 kilowatts of electricity, it is necessary to also cool 100 kilowatts of heat. No hydrogen plane will take off if we don’t work on this thermal management. This is why Liebherr-Aerospace has decided to internalize the production of a liquid pump which makes it possible to have a cold transport system on the plane as part of the France Relance plan.
Are fuel cells a gateway to the diversification of your activities?
Nathalie Duquesne – Yes, and it already is. We are currently working on air compressors for railway fuel cells and heavy mobility (trucks, buses). In rail, many lines are not electrified in Europe. In England, for example, there are very few electrified lines and trains still run on diesel. These trains will go directly to fuel cells. We have high hopes that the partnerships around hydrogen fuel cells will bring us substantial revenues over a ten-year horizon.
To come back to your recruitment plan, what are your main needs? And what are the positions in tension today?
Jerome Walnut – Schematically, around 60% of the recruitment plan aims to support the ramp-up. We have positions open for operators on numerically controlled machines, mechanical fitters, boilermakers, welders on equipment… There are shortage occupations in these skilled worker positions. Then, 40% of recruitments aim to support the decarbonization of aviation with positions on the electrical and thermal management of the aircraft in particular. These are also occupations in tension, just like the profiles project manager and designer around mechanics, electromechanics, but also experts in scientific simulation (aerodynamics, thermal, control…) and embedded software professions.
What actions have you implemented to overcome these recruitment difficulties in shortage occupations?
Jerome Walnut – We use work-study training and professional retraining for job seekers. This year, we are going to train between 30 and 40 people who have already had a first professional life and who will convert to these aeronautical professions via a partnership with Pôle emploi and temporary employment companies. 80% of them are hired on permanent contracts at the end of the process.
The other aspect is to create recruitment events to be better identified, like the Experts’ Meeting evening that we are organizing on January 30 at AviaSim, the leader in flight simulators in France. Even if today the size of the company and its presence on the main aeronautical programs, reveal a visibility to us, it is important to create appointments to present the group’s businesses. On this event, we will target a population of executives and give them the opportunity to meet our experts. Today, an employee is looking for a job but he especially wants to know what he has contributed to. We will enable them to take part in the fourth revolution in aeronautics with decarbonization.
Nathalie Duquesne – Liebherr-Aerospace has been working on technological solutions to reduce fuel consumption for more than 25 years now, this is not something new to us. Hydrogen is already a reality. We already have a hydrogen bench in our test center with a fuel cell running systems to run simulations for products. We have already taken action.