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Bloomberg
Airbus SE handed over 72 aircraft last month, stepping up deliveries even as coronavirus flare-ups delayed a recovery in air travel.
The surge confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report and marked the best performance so far this year for the European planemaker. Its quarterly total of 125 surpassed the 122 aircraft delivered in the year-ago period, largely before the pandemic took hold.
The uptick will ease concerns about Airbus’s inventory of undelivered aircraft, which stood at about 100 in mid-February. Matching deliveries with build rates is vital for the manufacturer as it seeks to ramp up output of its flagship A320 family of aircraft during the third quarter.
The latest figures “support the 40-a-month build rate for its most profitable airplane,†Bloomberg Intelligence analysts George Ferguson and Francois Duflot said in a note. Help came in the form of the US-China trade dispute, with China taking 10 Airbus narrow-bodies as opposed to planes from USrival Boeing Co, and low-cost carriers, they said.
The European planemaker had eight cancellations in March, with lessor Avolon scrapping some existing narrowbody orders to adjust its mix of aircraft, according to figures. Airbus saw 28 orders, taking the net total this year to minus 61 after Norwegian Air cancelled a slew of jets in February. While increasing handovers is good news for the manufacturer, the outlook for travel in Europe and Asia remains gloomy, putting pressure on the finances of key Airbus customers.