Dr. Rao has over 25 years of aircraft sales experience with Airbus and held the position as EVP Strategy and Marketing at Airbus. He was also in parallel appointed as Deputy to the Chief Operating Officer – Customers for Airbus. Most recently, Dr. Rao worked as Head of OEM Relations at Airborne Capital, an asset manager based in Ireland, until October 2022, on aircraft leasing and airline advisory in a commercial function. Throughout his decades in Airbus, Dr. Rao developed an extensive relationship network with airlines in his various roles focused on sales and marketing.

Leading up to this, Dr. Rao has held a series of key positions in Airbus. From 2008, he was EVP Sales and Marketing; from 2006 Executive Vice President Marketing and Contracts; from 2004 Senior Vice President Marketing & Pricing Policies; and from 2000 to 2004 Vice President of Sales for South Asia and Africa.

Dr. Rao began his professional career in the Aerodynamics Department of British Aerospace at Hatfield from 1988-89, working on flight-control systems. Dr Rao then joined British Aerospace’s Marketing Group, working on sales campaigns in India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Dr. Rao holds a BSc in Aeronautical Engineering and a PhD in Transonic Aerodynamics from the City University of London, which is sponsored by British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) at Hatfield, United Kingdom. Dr. Rao was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Honneur (France) for his contributions in the field of industry.

Mr. Laval has over 33 years of aircraft sales experience, and was Airbus’ Senior Vice President of Sales – Asia, where he was heading Airbus’ efforts within the APAC region. At the time of his departure from Airbus, Mr. Laval was a member of its senior management team, being the top 50 leaders who manage the company’s strategic implementation. Most recently, Mr. Laval worked as Head of Asia at Airborne Capital, an asset manager based in Ireland, until August 2022, on aircraft leasing and airline advisory in a commercial function.

During his decades with Airbus, Mr. Laval oversaw Airbus’ operations in some the world’s fastest growing economies. He can be credited for growing Airbus’ commercial presence in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Mr. Laval holds a diploma in Business Administration from Ecole Superieure de Commerce, and an MBA from INSEAD. Mr. Laval was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite (France) for his contributions in the field of industry.

Philippe Combet joined Airbus in 1982 as Contracts Administrator, then started contracts negotiation in January 1985 with the first Airbus deal in China, leading a team of contracts managers handling all contracts-related matters in Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Caribbean, Central and South America.

Philippe Combet moved to the US in the summer of 1996 to become Vice-President Contracts, Airbus North America. He came back to Toulouse in the summer of 2001 to be in charge of Engine Procurement. He then joined the Department of Executive and Private Aviation end 2003 focusing on the creation of a strategic plan for the development of VIP aircraft sales in North America.

He joined Airbus’ Tokyo office in the summer of 2005 as Vice President Operations. Philippe Combet came back to Toulouse in the summer of 2007 as Head of Contracts Negotiation, Americas & China & India & Japan & Middle-East & North Africa. Philippe Combet was nominated Vice President Sales, Singapore Airlines & AirAsia Group in January 2014, adding Israel and South Asia to that responsibility in May 2015. He then moved to Québec in May 2019 to join Airbus Canada in charge of coordination between Airbus Canada and the Airbus sales teams worldwide. Most recently, Mr. Combet worked as OEM Relations Specialist at Airborne Capital, an asset manager based in Ireland, until August 2022, on aircraft leasing and airline advisory in a commercial function.

Philippe Combet was born in Paris in 1955, spending his primary education partly there, partly in London. He did a Masters in Finance at Paris University before doing a Masters in Marketing at Sherbrooke University in Québec.

Peter has extensive experience in aerospace, sustainability, marketing, strategy and business transformation in several global locations (North America, Europe, Middle East). His experience include traditional aircraft manufacture Airbus as well as zero emission, hydrogen electric aerospace technologies.

During tenure at Airbus, Peter held VP/HO positions for aerospace marketing teams in both North America and the Middle East. In this time, he developed a robust marketing strategies and campaigns resulting in an increase of the Airbus backlog in North America at the end 2019 to approximately 1,000 aircraft valued at over $100 billion.

Peter delivered business/digital transformation projects resulting in significant savings and operational efficiencies (North America Commercial digital maturity was transformed from “under development” to “deployed” under my leadership within 18 months). Peter has a degree in Economics from the University of York.

Simon Greaves is President and Owner of 3165 Consulting SAS, a firm that specializes in providing expertise to the civil aerospace and aviation industry in the fields of aircraft sale and purchase transactions, aeronautical industrial reviews and airline market forecasts.

In June 2022, Simon retired from Airbus, the worldwide leader in aerospace after 36 years, where he held positions in financial systems and aero-engine procurement, before joining the Commercial Directorate in 1998.

For the next 12 years he toured the world selling Airbus aircraft (A320, A330, A380, A350, including freighters) to the major airlines of the world : Delta, FedEx and jetBluein the USA, Emirates, Qatar and Singapore Airlines, the big 3 in China and the European flag carriers. Each transaction being valued at several billion USD.

In 2010 he was promoted to Vice President Commercial Planning, a more central role which gave him governance of the Airbus Orderbook and responsibility for « sales-production matching », the battlefield between commercial and industrial. This unique position not only afforded day-to-day understanding of complex manufacturing systems and processes, but also gave Simon insight into every new aircraft transaction the world over.

In 2020, in addition to his existing duties, Simon was made responsible for Customer Special Projects where he managed complex issues directly for the Chief Commercial Officer, including World Trade Organization Tariffs, chairing the Covid Customer Response Team and leading the Tiger Team to launch the A350 freighter, the latest addition to the Airbus product line.

Martin has been Head of Marketing APAC at Airbus for the past ten years leading teams in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Toulouse. He previously spent seven years in the marketing team in Dubai and six years in Toulouse, primarily covering Asian and European customers.

Prior to Toulouse he spent four years as an Initial Provisioning Director in Hamburg, working on the introduction of A320 and A330/A340 fleets at a number of European, American and Asian customers.

Martin brings a wealth of experience across a broad range of technical, fleet and network, economic and broader market fields having worked on fleet evaluations with a variety of different airlines, LCCs, regional, mainline carriers as well as lessors.

Matthew has 5 years experience in the aviation and finance sector and worked worked across the pricing, technical structuring and research functions. His aviation career began after completing his Masters Degree in Data Science from City University.

Matthew was the Lead Analyst for technical/financial forecasting and advisory business at Airborne Capital and built the internal models used for cash flow, ownership, engine maintenance and purchase contract evaluation and global supply and demand trend analyst.

On top of his Data Science degree, Matthew also has a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and was the lead for all Aircraft Valuations and Maintenance Fly Forwards for the technical team at Airborne Capital.

His programming and data analytic skills provide the Blue Skies team with detailed and innovative research as well as state of the art proprietary aviation models

Mr. Razzaq has over 30 years of experience with Pratt & Whitney, initially leading teams to develop advanced technical solutions for future engines and most recently spearheading teams of Sales, Marketing and Customer Support to win multi-Billion dollars in business both in New Engine sales as well as MRO contracts with customers in The Middle East/N. Africa, Asia Pacific, and N. America.  

Mr. Razzaq started his career at Pratt & Whitney researching new processes and technologies such as cast-in cooling holes on single crystal airfoils, corrosion resistant superalloys, thermal cycle resistant ceramic coatings, and lower cost hollow fan blades. This work led Mr. Razzaq to win a US Patent in 1994.

Mr. Razzaq was selected for a two-year Leadership Development Program after which he focused on senior level roles interacting with Partners and Customers.

Mr. Razzaq led all aspects of relationship with the largest PW4000 partner, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan. He also led teams to set up two new green field facilities: a superalloy casting facility in Ansan City, S. Korea and a Titanium Diffusion Bonding facility in Taipei City, Taiwan. At the start of eCommerce, Mr. Razzaq started a new logistics section within Pratt & Whitney to ship parts ordered online as well as manage the flow of part repair between MRO centers for airline customers around the world.

Mr. Razzaq holds an Executive MBA from the University of Connecticut, an MSc in Metallurgy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Hartford Campus), a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and a BSc in Materials Science & Engineering, both from Cornell University.

Kimon Sotiropoulos had a long carreer in the Airbus Sales and Marketing department. Before leaving Airbus in 2024 and founding Delphi Aviation Advisory he held the position of Vice President Sales, taking care of the Central and Northern Europe Business Unit that also encompassed Russia and Central Asia. Over these years Kimon could develop a substantial high-quality network in the aviation industry. 

Prior to that, in 2008, he set up and led a dedicated sales team for the newly created Freighter Aircraft Business Unit at Airbus, focussing exclusively on their developing portfolio of factory freighters and passenger-to-freighter conversions worldwide. 

From 2000 to 2008 Kimon was the Airbus sales director for various countries in Europe, including Germany, where he achieved a few landmark deals. Managing complex customer accounts, very often involving the renegotiation of contractual arrangements, was part of his tasks.

In 1996 he moved to the Airbus headquarter in Toulouse, France and gained a deep product and airline knowledge in various roles in the Airline Marketing department. His main activity was to accompany airline customers in their network planning, fleet planning and aircraft evaluation.

With a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, Kimon started his professional career in 1991 at Airspares in Hamburg. Airspares was the name of the aircraft spare parts business of Airbus at that time and is now part of Satair. He was taking care of the initial provising activities for a variety of airlines worldwide.

Benefitting from his carreer-long experience, Kimon is today providing consulting services to the aviation industry in the fields of network and fleet planning, aircraft evaluation and customisation, negotiation and restructuring of purchase/lease contracts and trading.