‘Bear of the Pyrenees’, former Airbus CEO Jean Pierson dies

Jean Pierson, the “Bear of the Pyrenees” who propelled planemaker Airbus onto the worldwide stage and started its transformation from a free consortium right into a European large, has died, former colleagues mentioned on Thursday.
Pierson died on Wednesday aged 80 in France, they mentioned. The Frenchman was Airbus’ longest-serving chief govt,between 1985 and 1998, and was credited with breaking into Boeing’s residence market within the United States, kickstartingone of the world’s biggest enterprise rivalries.
“He was a great personality and leader. He brought Airbus from a startup to compete head-to-head with Boeing,” mentioned former spokeswoman Barbara Kracht, whose father co-founded Airbus.
A burly and voracious dealmaker who grew up outdoors the slender Parisian-educated circle that dominated French business, Pierson strode manufacturing facility flooring and exhorted gross sales groups to tackle Boeing on its residence turf regardless of executives’ preliminary wariness.
In 1997, he landed a breakthrough order for 400 jets from US Airways for which he dropped his trousers in protestagainst a last-minute low cost demand, a tactic first recounted in a 2007 ebook “Boeing vs Airbus”, which he later confirmed.
On one other event, Pierson informed Reuters, he ripped off his shirt, telling a tenacious airline boss that the garment would possibly as effectively be thrown into the aggressively priced deal.
“He was an inspirational leader. He didn’t care about his salary and all he cared about was the people and the success of Airbus,” mentioned Mohamed El Borai, president of Reliance Aerospace and a former Pierson worker.
Nicknamed the “Bear of the Pyrenees,” the gruff steak-loving businessman and bon vivant took gambles that also form an business the place success or failure is measured in a long time.
He strongly backed the A380 superjumbo, which flopped available in the market and is about to see its final supply after simply 14 years. But he precisely predicted that the A400M navy aircraft would trigger bother for the thencivil producer. It has simply received its second export order in 16 years and blown enormous losses.
‘LIAR’S CLUB’
“He knew how to build airplanes and knew that to succeed in a duopoly you can’t be a small player,” mentioned John Leahy, the uncompromising American promoted over Europeans by Pierson to fill the job of gross sales chief, which he held for over twenty years.
Pierson fought for the long run A320 money cow and threw aides who proposed a distinct cockpit for the sister A321 out of his workplace, Leahy mentioned. The one-cockpit technique set the stage for A321 gross sales that underpin earnings of a brand new administration as we speak.
Pierson was “a great humanist behind the bear facade,” mentioned present Chief Commercial Officer Christian Scherer.
Airbus was based in 1969 as a enterprise between industrial teams in France, Germany, Spain and Britain and went on to grab Boeing’s crown because the world’s largest planemaker.
Crucially, former aides say, Pierson started an extended strategy of integration by declaring the unique consortium outdated.A veteran of shareholder conferences recognized internally because the “Liar’s Club” after the propensity of companions to disguise prices, Pierson campaigned for Airbus to develop into a single firm.Rather than shopping for jets from shareholders and promoting and supporting them overseas, Airbus would wish extra management.
After retiring to his fishing boat, Pierson made few appearances as the corporate plunged into greater than a decade ofin-fighting underneath new companions, however he broke silence in 2007 to warn Franco-German power-sharing would fail.The concept was deserted in 2013, although the nations stay as shareholders.