Giant Aircraft manufacturer, Airbus (AIR.PA) announced a 17 percent plunge in planned 2019 deliveries of its most successful wide-body jet on Friday following a series of order defeats to rival Boeing, while blurring near-term production plans for the much healthier A320.
Europe’s largest aerospace group is simultaneously juggling a drop in demand for its A330 wide-body jet – the only one of its class on which it currently makes a profit – against record demand for bread-and-butter models like the A320.
Airbus said it was reducing deliveries of the 250-300-seat A330 to around 50 aircraft in 2019, compared with 67 last year and 60 planned for 2018. That comes after an upgraded version due to enter service this year failed to sell as it had hoped.i
While the narrow body A320neo remains a best-seller, with Airbus recently unable to produce the jets fast enough due to engine supply problems, the upgraded A330neo has been losing ground to the newer Boeing (BA.N) 787 at carriers like American Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines.
Shares in Airbus dipped just over 1 percent on the results, which came days after Boeing beat forecasts after improving deliveries and turning the corner on 787 costs.
iAirbus reported an adjusted quarterly operating profit of 14 million euros ($17 million) after a restated year-earlier loss of 19 million. Revenues fell 12 percent to 10.12 billion euros.
Airbus reaffirmed full-year forecasts, however, predicting that A320neo deliveries would speed up later this year after a two-month break in some deliveries due to engine snags.
Analysts were on average expecting a 23.9 million euro quarterly operating loss on revenues of 10.21 billion, Reuters report.ii
Airbus said it saw continued strong demand for narrowbody jets like the A320, allowing it to explore future production rates of “70 or 70-plus” a month, up from around 55 a month now.
