The Airbus Foundation celebrates its first decade

On 30 August 2018 the Airbus Foundation – the company’s vehicle for corporate philanthropy – marked a milestone: its 10th anniversary

Over the last 10 years the Airbus Foundation has grown in size and scope but remains committed to a strategy that focuses on inspiring the next generation and humanitarian action. Throughout the previous decade the Foundation, chaired by Airbus CEO Tom Enders, has used the company’s aeronautic and space products, competencies, diverse workforce and culture for driving innovation to address societal issues of all kinds. Here are just a few highlights of these activities, while more info is available on the Foundation pages.

The Airbus Foundation could not have achieved so much without the committed Airbus employees who have supported its programmes and initiatives, along with the company’s management and engaged external partners. 

More than 7,300 young people and 1,700 employees in 13 countries and across 17 sites have been engaged in the Foundation’s youth programmes including the Airbus Flying Challenge and the Airbus Little Engineer.  Each programme aims to support young people at risk of social exclusion by inspiring them in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) through Airbus’ inspirational products, encouraging a fascination with aerospace.  A further inspirational example is the new Airbus Foundation Discovery Space digital platform which includes numerous activities to excite, engage and educate young people, and which will be continually updated and expanded.

In addition to its work with young people, the Foundation has developed a reputation for being a trusted and valued partner to the humanitarian community, offering support and services during emergency response and disaster relief situations.  It has also signed agreements with five key humanitarian partners: 

• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• World Food Programme Global Logistics Cluster
• Doctors Without Borders 
• Action Against Hunger 
• French Crisis and Support Centre

Responding to partner requests for assistance, the Foundation mobilises Airbus’ products and services to provide relief flights, helicopter hours and satellite imagery to help people in desperate need.  To date, the Foundation has coordinated 66 flights (17 humanitarian relief flights using Airbus test aircraft and 49 goodwill flights using customer delivery aircraft) to transport over 864 tonnes of essential aid and medical and humanitarian personnel and funded 418 helicopter hours over 20 emergency missions.  In addition, more than 700 people have been trained for emergency helicopter rescue missions.

More recently in 2017, the Foundation added the provision of satellite imagery to the portfolio of services available to its humanitarian partners and has already successfully fulfilled 11 separate requests. In addition, it held the first Airbus ‘Innovation for Humanity’ summit earlier this year to bring together representatives from the humanitarian community with Airbus employees with the aim of developing innovative solutions to some of the key challenges they face. 

Reflecting on the last 10 years, there have been many challenges and many successes, as highlighted above. However, the Foundation could not have achieved so much without the committed Airbus employees who have supported its programmes and initiatives, along with the company’s management and engaged external partners. With such continued support and cooperation, here’s to the next 10 years of achievements!