An aerospace fair with a deepsea ship
In conversation with Jean-Philippe Tison, Bolloré Logistics’ senior vice-president for aerospace and defence. In March Jean-Philippe Tison was appointed as the new head of Bolloré Logistics’ aerospace and defence division – one of the company’s key units. This represented a step up for the manager who joined the global logistics provider in 2019. He benefits from experience he gained in the role of head of Bolloré’s automotive division. The unit’s horizon extends far, however, as Tison reported at the Paris Air Show.
How important is the Bolloré Logistics division that you were recently placed in charge of, Mr Tison?
Services for the aviation industry are in the top three of the solutions we offer, together with healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and luxury goods. We don’t publish the figures of our operations, as you know, but I can tell you that in this segment we’ve got 1,200 employees on board in more than 100 countries. They work in 21 AOG centres, where they respond to customers’ needs around the clock, and in 23 so-called ‘Control Towers’.
Where are these located?
Our operational regions reflect the history of Bolloré Logistics. As a French group we naturally have a strong presence in Europe. But we’re an industry leader, so you’ll also find us wherever the aerospace industry is strong, including for example in major US aerospace locations in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta, in Tianjin in China, where Airbus runs an assembly line, in Kourou in French Guiana, where the aerospace launch services provider Arianespace is active, and in Marseilles, in the proximity of Airbus Helicopters.
What distinguishes Bolloré from its competitors in the sector?
Bolloré Logistics arranges the transport of millions of small parts as well as the charter of entire aircraft for major projects. Our experience, also in the context of security-sensitive defence technology, and the global availability of our logistics experts make us one of the top service providers in this segment.
Aviation suffers from the stigma of harming the environment. What is Bolloré’s reaction to this?
We’ve been committed to reducing the carbon footprint of our business activities for about 15 years now, driven also by customers in the luxury goods sector. The criticism of aviation isn’t unfair; it’s our job to offer our clients solutions.
To this end we’ve developed a programme called ‘Beyond Carbon’, which represents a true co-working effort. We work hand in hand with our customers and together we rethink their existing transport processes, their overall supply chain, their packaging – in short, their entire logistics needs. In this context we also sometimes ask them whether they really need to resort to airfreight in various specific cases.
In connection with our sustainability efforts we’ve also exhibited at our stand here in Paris a model of the ‘Canopée’, a maritime cargo vessel that we deployed to transport a 42 t satellite to Kourou (French Guiana) recently.
The market’s been under pressure concerning the air transport of large parts since Russia invaded Ukraine. How has Bolloré addressed this situation?
We’ve become one of the biggest users, if not the biggest one, of the very large new freighters developed by Airbus. I hope it doesn’t sound cynical if I point out that there’s been a marked increase in the volume of defence shipments as a consequence of this terrible war.