Jean Pierson

Jean Pierson
03.04.82 1er Vol d'Airbus A310 (1982) - 53Fi2050 (Jean Pierson).jpg
Pierson in 1982
Born(1940-11-17)17 November 1940
Died3 November 2021(2021-11-03) (aged 80)
NationalityFrench
EducationPrytanée National Militaire
Alma materSupaéro
OccupationEngineer
EmployerAirbus

Jean Pierson (17 November 1940 – 3 November 2021) was a French aerospace engineer who served as the managing director and CEO of Airbus Industrie between 1985 and 1998. During his time as the leader of the company, the company emerged as a global competitor to the then leader Boeing. In addition to advancing the Airbus A320 program he also set up the wide bodied double decker Airbus A380 program.

Biography

Pierson was born on 17 November 1940 in Bizerte in the French protectorate of Tunisia. He studied at the Prytanée national militaire, the military academy of La Flèche in France and graduated from the Institut supérieur de l'aéronautique et de l'espace in 1963. His started his career in 1963 at Sud Aviation, the predecessor of Airbus Industrie, where he worked as a production engineer. He joined the French aerospace manufacturer Aérospatiale in 1972, going on to head their commercial aircraft business. Between 1972 to 1976, Pierson served as the director of SOCATA, the light aircraft division of Aérospatiale, and served as the director of the Toulouse office of Aérospatiale between 1976 and 1983.

Pierson succeeded Bernard Lathière [fr] as the managing director of Airbus in March 1985. Lathiere had lost his job due to a conflict between the German and French shareholders of the company. At the time, Airbus was not a significant competitor to the then market leader, Boeing, who held more than a seventy percent market share in the commercial jetliner space. Airbus was often dismissed by the market leader Boeing as a "minor nuisance" whose primary charter was to drive European jobs. Pierson's actions as a leader included broadening the company's range of commercial jets and establishing a brand that could compete on quality. In a move to break into the US commercial aviation market, Pierson recruited native-English talent and had a former US Transportation Secretary, Alan S. Boyd, take position as the North American leader. He also set up a pilot training center in Florida as a finishing school for pilots of Airbus jets. In one of the first big wins, Northwest Airlines, which would later merge with Delta Air Lines, ordered 100 Airbus A320 jets. In another of the big wins, US Airways, which later merged with American Airlines, placed an order for 400 jets in 1997. He is famously known to have unbuckled his belts and dropped his trousers at a last minute discount demanded by the airline's CEO Stephen Wolf. Wolf is said to have ended the negotiation at that act, and signed the contract for 400 jets.

Pierson defended Airbus against Boeing and American allegations that the gains made by the corporation were primarily due to government subsidies by countering that Boeing benefited from military orders from the United States. In an interview to The New York Times in 1991, he said, "The Americans take the position that the Europeans are the black sheep and the Americans the white sheep, when the truth is that all the sheep are gray."

In addition to advancing the Airbus A320 program, he also set up the wide-bodied double-decker A3xx program which would later become the Airbus A380 program. He played a large role in the commercial development of Airbus Industries. While the Airbus A380 would prove to be a commercial failure many years later, with its last manufactured flight in 2021, 14 years after the first flight, Pierson was known to have been right in calling the failure of the A400. He led investments to the Airbus A320 program and led the one-cockpit strategy while developing the Airbus A321, further cementing the A320 family of aircraft as the cash cow for the company. He also participated in the Concorde program and led investments into growth of the wide-bodied Airbus A330 and Airbus A340 programs.

Pierson retired from Airbus in 1998, after serving as the managing director since 1985. During his time as the leader, the company's global market share increased from 17% to 40%. In addition to breaking the North American market, he is also credited with transforming Airbus from a loose consortium to a global competitor in the aviation industry. At the time that he took over as the leader, Airbus was a consortium that brought together French Aérospatiale, West German Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, Britain's British Aerospace, and Spain's Construtores Aeronauticas, a combination of multiple state-owned firms relying on loans and credits from the host countries. He had to face regulatory threats and threats of retaliation from the then Reagan administration which deemed the state support enjoyed by Airbus as anti-competitive. He began the process of integration and creation of a unified corporation, calling the old model of the consortium outdated.

Pierson was known in the French media as "the Bear of the Pyrénées" in reference to his imposing personality and also to the Pyrenees mountains not too far from Airbus' headquarters at Toulouse.

Jean Pierson died on 3 November 2021 two weeks before his 81st birthday.

Distinctions

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