‘Second Hat’ as Head of Airbus Spain

Airbus Defence and Space has appointed Alberto Gutiérrez, 56, as Head of Military Aircraft with effect from 1 January 2019. He succeeds Fernando Alonso, 62, who is retiring after 37 years at Airbus. Gutiérrez will also act as Head of Airbus Spain, overseeing all company activities in the country. Alonso will remain with the company through March to ensure a smooth transition.

“I thank Fernando for his outstanding engagement and inspiring leadership over all these years. In fact, he’s one of the best people leaders I have ever met in our industry. Fernando looks back on an excellent career with countless achievements. Not only was he instrumental in recovering the critical A400M situation at the helm of Military Aircraft in recent years; he also contributed to the development and bringing to operation all of our Airbus family aircraft as a Flight Test Engineer. With thousands of flight test hours under his belt, he performed the maiden flights of the A340-200 in 1992, the A319 in 1997, the A380 in April 2005 and the A350 XWB in June 2013. That is one impressive track record! I wish him a well-deserved retirement,” commented Airbus CEO Tom Enders.

“With Alberto Gutiérrez, we have a successor to Fernando who brings an extensive background and expertise in Military Aircraft. His business intimacy is a crucial asset as we look towards exploring a range of new opportunities in the defence business, ranging from campaigns on existing platforms like the Eurofighter or the A330MRTT to new projects like the Future Combat Air System. Alberto’s strong customer focus, combined with programme and engineering expertise, make him the ideal candidate to continue our improvement and growth journey in our Military Aircraft business in the coming years,” added Airbus Defence and Space CEO, Dirk Hoke, to whom Gutiérrez will report.

Deputy Head of Military Aircraft within Airbus Defence and Space since July 2017, Gutiérrez was CEO for Eurofighter GmbH, based in Germany from 2013 to 2016. He started his career in 1985 as an engineer and has held many senior management positions in Airbus Defence and Space, including Head of Operations for Airbus Military and Head of Eurofighter Production for Germany and Spain. He has a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid.