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Airbus has said it aims to make 820 planes this year as the world’s biggest aerospace manufacturer attempts to overcome problems in its supply chain.
The European company said that deliveries would rise by 7% compared with the 766 planes made last year, as it reported an 8% drop in income for 2024 excluding various charges, to €5.4bn (£4.7bn).
Guillaume Faury, Airbus’s chief executive, described it as “a testing year” but said “strong order intake” confirmed there was “solid demand for our products and services”.
The company, headquartered in Toulouse, France, also reported a €300m charge at its struggling space business, adding to the €1bn of losses it had already recognised for the division during the year. It is considering a merger with the French rival Thales’s space division.
Ramping up production of commercial planes has proved tricky, with Airbus’s supply chain struggling to recover from disruption and retirements during the coronavirus pandemic. That has prevented Airbus from fully pressing home its advantage over its US rival Boeing. Boeing has left Airbus as the unchallenged global leader because of years of safety crises, including a mid-air loss of a door panel a year ago.
Adding to Boeing’s woes, the US president, Donald Trump, said on Wednesday that he was considering buying used Boeing aircraft to serve as the new presidential transport, Air Force One, after years of delays and high costs. Trump toured a newer Boeing 747-800 plane in Florida on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters onboard one of the two almost 35-year-old Boeing 747-200 aircraft in current use, Trump said: “We’re looking at alternatives, because it’s taking Boeing too long.”
He said: “We may go and buy a plane,” adding that he could then “convert it”. However, he ruled out buying an Airbus plane.
Trump could yet cause major problems for Airbus. The European company’s guidance specifically excludes the impact of potential new tariffs that could result from Trump’s trade war against most of the US’s key trading partners. Airbus builds some aircraft in Alabama but its exports of planes and imports of parts, notably from Canada, could be affected.
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While Airbus is still on track to increase production of its bestselling aircraft, the single-aisle A320, it said that production of the larger, twin-aisle A350 and the smaller A220 was disrupted by “specific supply chain challenges, notably with Spirit AeroSystems”. Spirit is being broken up as part of a takeover by Boeing, with Airbus taking on A220 wing production in Belfast.
Airbus has delayed an effort to produce a new freighter version of its A350 plane by a year, and also reported a £121m charge for yet more delays to its struggling military transport plane, the A400M.
