Airbus Senior VP Training and Flight Operations retires

Pierre Baud, Airbus Senior Vice President Training and Flight Operations, is retiring at the end of the year after an impressive career in aviation that spans five decades, including thirty years with Airbus. He is to be replaced by Jean-Michel Roy, currently Airbus' Senior Director, Training Policy.

Pierre Baud joined Airbus in 1972 as engineering test pilot, becoming Vice President Flight Division and Chief Test Pilot in 1978 - a role he held until he was appointed Head of the Training Centre in 1994.

As such, Pierre Baud took part in the development and certification of the first widebody-twin ever built, the A300B in 1974, the first two-man cockpit in a widebody-twin in 1981, the first commercial fly-by-wire aircraft in 1987 and the first European four-engine subsonic aircraft in 1991.

He also took part in the certification of the A310 captained the first flights of the A300-600, the A320 and the A340-300, and co-piloted that of the A321. In June 1993, he also captained the Paris-Auckland-Paris flight with an A340-200 dubbed the "World Ranger", which flew around the world with only one stop in just over 48 hours, setting 4 world records.

Pierre Baud is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l'Aéronautique and the Ecole du Personnel Navigant Essais - Réception. After qualifying as a flight-test engineer and pilot, Mr Baud joined the French flight-test centre (Centre d'Essais en Vol) in 1962, becoming manager of the Aircraft Division in 1966. He spent the next five years as an experimental test pilot on more than 250 types of aircraft, from commercial aircraft to supersonic fighters. He left the French Air Force with the rank of colonel in 1972 to join Airbus. He has logged more than 17,000 flight hours and tested some 300 new aircraft types.

In 1987, Pierre Baud was awarded the Médaille de Vermeil de l'Académie Nationale de l'Air et de lEspace. He received the Laurels award from Aviation Week in 1991 and the Franklin.W.Kolk Air Transportation Progress Award in 1998. He also received the Médaille de l'Aéronautique and the Médaille d'Officier de la Légion d'Honneur awarded by the French Government. 

Jean-Michel Roy, who succeeds Pierre Baud as Airbus' Vice President, Training and Flight Operations, has spent the past 22 years working in flight testing and operations, and training for Aerospatiale and Airbus. He is currently Airbus' Senior Director, Training Policy.

After two years as Flight Operations Engineer in the Airbus Flight Test Centre, he joined Aerospatiale in 1983 where he reached the position of Vice President, Training and Flight Operations, and was responsible for the creation of the ATR Training Centre.

In 1996, Jean-Michel Roy returned to Airbus as Chief Pilot at the Airbus Training Centre in Beijing. Since then, he has worked in Hamburg on the A318 and A319 programmes and is now based in Toulouse.