Interview with CEO Mr. Nicolas BONLEUX in Dourdan on Feb. 8th, 2023 and with SVP Marketing & Sales Mr. Yves Ambiehl in Troyes on Feb. 9th, 2023.

AeroMorning – Mr BONLEUX, can you present in a few words your company : origin, where is it located, which products, sales revenue, where are Cobham Aerospace Communications markets in the world…?

Cobham Aerospace Communications is a leading supplier of airborne avionics systems in the fields of satellite communications, audio/radio management, antennas, lights, clocks, and man-machine interfaces.

We are an international company with headquarters in Rungis (Paris), France, and operate 7 sites in France (Rungis, Troyes, Dourdan), the United States (Fullerton, CA), Canada (Montreal), South Africa (Cape Town), and Denmark (Lyngby), with sales offices in Singapore, China and India.

The company has 3 centers of excellence in France, among which production centers in remote areas:

–       Rungis (Paris area) for Research & development and engineering (from product concept to product certification). Rungis also holds the company’s headquarter with global support functions

–       Troyes for production of on-board electronics and computers

–       Dourdan for production and engineering of static antennas, lights and man-machine interface

Through its innovative technologies and highly reliable, Cobham Aerospace Communications has established strong and long-standing partnerships with many of the world’s leading manufacturers of commercial and regional aircraft; business jets; general aviation aircraft; military trainer, transport, and fighter aircraft; helicopters; and UAVs.

In particular, Cobham Aerospace Communications is a supplier of Airbus fixed-wing programs (Single-Aisle, Long Range, A 350 XWB, A 400M), as well as numerous of the world‘s flagship aircraft civil and military programs (Boeing 737 Max, Boeing 787, Boeing KC 46, Boeing C-17, Lockheed Martin C-130, Dassault Rafale, Dassault Falcon family, Embraer KC-390, Embraer Praetor, Embraer Phenom, Airbus Helicopters H160, Airbus Helicopters H225, Airbus Helicopters NH 90, Airbus Helicopters Tiger, Comac C-919,….).

With c. 165 m$ of revenues in 2022, the company is enjoying a rapid growth, being the world leader in safety-certified satcom systems and audio/radio management systems. Cobham Aerospace Communications is the only European company that masters internally 100% of the technologies from development, certification to manufacturing of Satcom systems (modem and antenna).

AeroMorning – Innovation is being introduced everywhere now with AI (Artificial Intelligence) , MEA (More Electrical Aircraft), autonomous driving  for cars and flying for airplanes (ATTOL Automatic Take Off and Landing and Dragonfly for Airbus), more satellites flying around the earth (LEO Low Earth Orbit satellites), traffic on some airport being now controlled  from a control tower in a different airport  ?
How Cobham Aerospace Communications is participating to this move ?

We have technologies that position us as world’s # 1 of some of the fastest growing aerospace markets, like safety satellite communications for cockpit or digital audio/ radio management systems. As such, we are contributing to several initiatives that reduce the carbon footprint through the optimization of the aircraft trajectory, that enhance the safety of the flights and that strengthen the security of the communications between the aircraft and the air traffic management or the airport. As an example, we were part of Airbus’ UpNext Dragonfly testing.

In addition, we are investing into technologies that will make flying even simpler, safer and greener. For example, we are working on satellite communication technologies that will accommodate several satellite constellations at the same time. We are also developing cybersecurity technologies to raise the level of protection of the aircraft communications.

Our technologies play a key role as well in controlling unmanned air vehicles. Our products are on-board many unmanned air vehicles today and we are developing the technologies to enable the new aviation vehicles, and especially the electrical aircraft and the urban mobility aircraft.

We are working as well on the next generation of static antennas that will considerably limit drag and hence substantially enhance the aircraft fuel consumption and the aircraft manoeuvrability.

For all the above-mentioned on-board systems, Artificial Intelligence plays a key role in making our systems able to continuously adapt to evolving aircraft operating conditions.

Finally yet importantly, we own unique technologies in the field of external lights, for example in the fields of landing lights or search lights for mission helicopters. Our lighting technologies combine high lighting power with low power consumption and improved in-aircraft installation capability.

AeroMorning – Security in communications is more and more a concern: how Cobham Aerospace Communications is addressing this?

Our systems, being in charge both of ensuring communication with the satellite and managing the communication of the aircraft with its external environment, are located at the very core of the security in communication. We are already providing systems that meet or exceed the most severe requirements in this matter, especially for military aircraft. We are now in the process of developing the next generation of cybersecurity devices that will enable the next step in the security of aircraft communications.

AeroMorning – UAV (Unmaned Aerial Vehicule) , drone and E-VTOL is an emerging market. What are Cobham Aerospace communications activities in this field ?

Our satellite communication technologies are already in use on UAVs, where they bring unique control ability and unrivalled ability to fly in the civil airspace.

In addition, our static antennas technologies will enable the next-generation UAVs to perform advanced communications with their fellow flying vehicles.

We have also developed specific external lights for both UAVs and EVTOLs, that build upon our knowledge of external lights for general aviation and for helicopters. For EVTOL and urban air mobility vehicles, we are currently deploying a family of internal lighting and man-machine interface.

AeroMorning – Between civil and military, what is the current workshare within Cobham Aerospace Communications ?

At the moment, civil aviation represents circa 70% of our revenues.

Our technologies are truly differentiating both for civil aircraft and military aircraft, and we anticipate that both our civil and our military activities will grow quite quickly in the coming years.

As a matter of illustration, we have recently been selected by Boeing to retrofit the fleet of military transport C-17 with our satellite communication system, for the US Air Force as well as for all other forces that operate the aircraft.

AeroMorning – Being a human-size company at site level should be a real asset for well-being, human relations within the company and attracting talents as we see for example many young engineers not willing anymore being a number within large companies with ten thousand employees.
How is going Cobham Aerospace Communications in term of:
– Number of employees,
– Recruitment and do you face difficulties and how do you try to overcome them ?

While our systems are key to many aircraft programs in the world, we remain a relatively small company in the aerospace tier 1 supplier landscape with approximately 700 employees worldwide. In addition, all of our sites are of very limited size – no more than 200 employees in one given site, and most of them are located in quite remote locations at the countryside. This offers an unmatchable work/ life quality balance to all our employees.

This size and this setup enable us to offer to our employees a truly different work experience, being very close to the product, very close to the management, very close to the decision-making. With us, every employee has the ability to truly influence the decisions; every employee has a real impact on topics that matter: technology development, product development, carbon footprint…

We are growing very rapidly, and are hence hiring a substantial quantity of professionals, either apprentices, young graduates or experienced profiles. Most open positions are in the fields of engineering and of production, but we have open positions in almost all the company’s support functions – Human Resources, Sales, Customer Service, Finance, Procurement and Planning.

AeroMorning – How would you characterize your company ?

Our company constitutes a unique combination of human-sized sites and major worldwide presence. Therefore we are both very agile, very innovative and supplying very significant products for the future of aviation.

Our employees are given the opportunity to work in small teams to influence such structuring subjects as the contribution to de-carbonation of aviation, to safer aircraft communications and to more efficient satellite communications.

This constitutes quite a rare combination in the aerospace industry of the 21st century.