In 1969, when Roger Beteille, one of the founding fathers of Airbus, set about creating the principles upon which this new enterprise would be founded, he set in motion a distinctive value which has led to many of Airbus’ most pioneering new aircraft. 

The policy was this: Airbus would always listen to customers when designing and developing new aircraft and bringing new technology to the industry, with each one tailored to meet the specific needs of customers.  

Roger himself had spent time listening to airlines such as Air France and Lufthansa, as well as visiting airlines in the United States such as United, TWA and American Airlines.

“I wanted to try to understand what the customers really wanted,” he said, thereby laying the groundwork for much of the future success of Airbus. This culture of listening to customers remains at the heart of our success today; it is one of the six core values that guide the behaviours of Airbus employees around the world.

As Charbel Youzkatli, who works in Customer Services, says, “Today we are co-designing, co-creating with our customers. That demonstrates that from the inception of any new idea, we do it with our customers, for our customers.”

An example of this value in practice is our pioneering Customer Lighthouse programme, which Charbel helped implement. It’s an exchange programme with our customers: Airbus employees spend time working at an airline, and airline employees come to us. It encourages a mind-set of co-creation and collaboration.

Another example is the Space Academy, inaugurated in May 2018, an initiative to support all kinds of customers – from newcomers to those with significant space experience – as they operate the satellite and space systems we make for them.

Space customer Edgardo Barrueto, Satellite Manager for Peru’s PeruSAT-1 programme, really values this level of partnership: “The collaboration with Airbus engineers is excellent in every way. They are always taking care of our concerns, requests and requirements, establishing direct and unrestricted communication with our team.”