Tim Clark Pushing OEMs to Innovate More

Emirates President Sir Tim Clark, again, is pushing aircraft manufacturers to innovate more and come up with new designs more quickly. They are way too slow with progressing. “You can’t stay with the A350s or 777-9 forever; you need to move on. You have JetZero, but the others aren’t following.” Clark spoke on Tuesday morning during a media roundtable at the Farnborough Airshow, at which AirInsight was present.

“I have been fairly vocal about the lack of willingness to innovate airframe aerodynamics and propulsion. There is a lot of talk about it; not much has been done for all reasons that we know. Not the least the risk-averse position of the airline community, but the OEMs are also fairly risk-averse. Not because they don’t want to do it, but they don’t believe that the supply chain is coming in. I have problems with that as well. If you have 11 years of orders on this side of the Atlantic and probably about the same on the other side, then the task is to get control over your supply chain.”

Airbus and Boeing have gone conservative, Clark says. “When we started Emirates, there was great fertility in the minds of the heads of the two main corporations to innovation. When the A320 came to market in 1988, it was a step-change in aerodynamics and systems. That came from that group of people with Jean Pierson and Bernard Ziegler. There was a stable of aircraft. Now we got the A350, the A320, that’s it. They need to do more”, he said in direct reference to Airbus.