There are no autumn holidays for Airbus. In October, the European aircraft manufacturer delivered 71 commercial aircraft, an increase in pace compared to the previous two months, and received 119 orders with supply difficulties.
Since the beginning of the year, the industrial giant has delivered 559 aircraft and has two months left to reach the 720 annually promised to its customers, that is, a monthly rate of just over 80 units.
The month of October, however, marked a marked improvement compared to 55 aircraft in September and 52 in August. Deliveries are a reliable indicator of profitability in aviation because airlines foot most of the bill when they take possession of planes.
Airbus is immersed in a complex acceleration process, with the aim of increasing A320 production from 40 aircraft per month during the pandemic to 75 units per month by 2026.
Deal with expected traffic growth
But these ambitions run into obstacles among their suppliers. The engine manufacturer Safran, citing difficulties between “blacksmiths and foundries”, admitted on October 27 that it would not be able to reach its annual goal of delivering 1,700 LEAP engines, equipping around 60% of the aircraft in the A320neo range, and that it would achieve series of 50 to 100 fewer units.
Airlines are increasing orders to cope with the expected growth in their traffic and modernizing their fleets with aircraft that consume less fuel and, therefore, emit less CO2.
In fact, at the end of October, Airbus totaled 1,334 net orders since the beginning of the year, more than double its deliveries in the same interval, and much more than the whole of 2022 (820), which was already the best harvest since 2017. .
October orders came mainly from the US company United Airlines, for 60 single-aisle A321neo aircraft, and from Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific, which signed up for 32 aircraft, A320neo and A321neo, according to the Airbus summary.
Source: BFM TV
