Airbus trims delivery forecast amid supply chain challenges
"Persisting specific supply chain issues" are the main problems facing Airbus today. The European giant has announced that it is revising its forecasts. This year, the company will not deliver the planned 800 aircraft.
Airbus had announced the delivery of 800 passenger planes this year. The company will not meet this target. It announced this last week after a "comprehensive review."
"In the commercial aircraft sector, Airbus is grappling with persisting specific supply chain issues, mainly in the areas of engines, airframe components, and cabin equipment," the European giant said in a statement.
It added that "the company currently plans to deliver around 770 aircraft to customers in 2024." It also continues to aim at increasing the production rate of A320 family aircraft to 75 per month, but "should achieve this in 2027." Therefore, the company has updated its forecasts for this year.
About Airbus's plans for this year and the issue with part deliveries, Johan Pelissier, the new chairman of the group in Europe, spoke in an interview with money.pl. "We are looking at what is happening with each of our contractors. We have an 'observatory' on-site to make decisions more quickly on how to mitigate risks that may arise along the way. We are in a post-pandemic growth phase, this curve is quite steep, so monitoring is very important," he said.
He added that for individual aircraft from the A320/A321 family, the order list is filled to the end of this decade. "Demand is very high. Meanwhile, when it comes to aircraft like the A350, the reservation list is almost full until the end of the decade," Pelissier added.
Airbus updates forecasts for this year
Airbus's planned adjusted profit for this year is 7.1 billion CAD. Airbus expects that free cash flow before customer financing will be 4.5 billion CAD.
"As the basis for the update, the company assumes no additional disruptions in the world economy, air traffic, supply chain, internal operations, and capabilities to fulfill contracts for the delivery of products and services," the statement read.
Furthermore, Airbus had to record approximately 1.2 billion CAD in its financial statement for the first half of the year. "These are mainly related to updated assumptions regarding delivery schedules, workload, purchase costs, increased risks, and costs over the life of certain satellites and telecommunications, navigation, and observation services," the statement read.
