Laurent SCHMITT

Biography

A Centrale Lyon engineer, Laurent began his career as an aerodynamic engineer at Dassault Aviation in Saint Cloud. For nine years, he worked in different branches of the design office on the Rafale, Falcon and NEURON programs. In 2009, he joined the future projects office at Airbus in Toulouse, where he worked on the A320neo and the future of the A380. He then held the roles of Chief Engineer responsible for the A380 FALs in Toulouse and Hamburg, then Chief Engineer in charge of the development and certification of the A330neo. Finally, from 2021 to 2024, he was Chief Engineer of the Airbus Corporate Jets division.

Questioned and alarmed by the lack of a credible solution proposed by the aeronautics industry to the challenge posed by the end of the Canadair CL-215/415, Laurent started in 2022 to bring together a set of skilled and experienced people to find a pragmatic and viable solution. After 15 years at Airbus, Laurent became in 2024 President of Positive Aviation, which is developing the FF72 project based on this work.