*

Airbus names Remi Maillard Head of Technology and EVP

Engineering Commercial Aircraft

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Names Sabine Klauke head of Digital Design Manufacturing

and

Services

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Technology role no longer sits on main C-suite committee,

memo

shows

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Airbus working on technologies for new civil jetliner

(Adds context and details throughout)

By Tim Hepher

PARIS, May 23 (Reuters) - Airbus has appointed

its top executive in South Asia to be its next head of

technology in a shake-up of design and engineering as it studies

options for a successor to its best-selling A320neo jetliner, an

internal memo showed on Friday.

Remi Maillard, currently head of Airbus India and South

Asia, will lead Research & Technology across the European

aerospace group as Head of Technology Airbus and will combine

that role with leadership of engineering at the core commercial

airplanes business.

The Frenchman succeeds Sabine Klauke in the twin role but

the technology part of the job - which involves representing

Airbus in major European-funded projects - will no longer be

called Chief Technology Officer nor come with a seat on the main

executive committee, according to the memo seen by Reuters.

From July 1, Klauke will oversee digital design and

manufacturing in the main commercial business, taking charge of

a future factory ecosystem that CEO Guillaume Faury has

described as essential to the next generation of jet production.

Airbus confirmed an earlier Reuters report on the changes in

a LinkedIn posting.

Airbus merged technology and engineering in 2021, putting

long-term research and current projects under one roof after a

series of turf battles over resources, industry sources said.

Klauke reported both to commercial planemaking CEO Christian

Scherer and Faury under a complex structure introduced when the

commercial division was reinstated as a separate arm of the

company just over a year ago.

One source familiar with the changes said they reflected the

weight being given to the next potential airplane project, which

Airbus has said it may launch towards the end of the decade, but

another said the technology function had been downgraded.

In a handwritten postscript to the memo, Faury called the

new roles "absolutely instrumental to the future of Airbus".

Airbus has said it is working on a number of technologies

for a successor to its cash-generating A320neo including new

propulsion, materials, systems and slender folding wings.

However, it delayed plans for a smaller regional

hydrogen-powered plane earlier this year, joining Boeing and

turboprop maker ATR in rolling back a number of high-profile

research projects. Airbus says the ecosystem for hydrogen is not

mature.