Airbus: An enlarged version of the A220 “makes sense”, says Faury











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PARIS (Reuters) – Airbus said on Friday it was considering launching a stretched version of its A220 jet, which currently seats 110 to 130 passengers, but said it would not make a hasty decision on the matter.

An elongated version of the device makes sense, but “we don’t want to be right too soon,” said Guillaume Faury, the European aircraft manufacturer’s managing director.

Initially designed by the Canadian Bombardier, which wanted to expand its range of small airliners, the project was bought by Airbus in 2018, which found itself faced with soaring costs for this loss-making program.

Financial director Dominik Asam, however, assured Friday that this project would become profitable by the middle of the decade.

He also reaffirmed the production forecast for the A320neo range.

Airbus is putting less pressure on its suppliers to meet its production target of 75 single-aisle jets a month by mid-decade, Reuters said on Wednesday based on industry sources.

Airbus officially continues to target production of 75 single-aisle aircraft per month by 2025, after pushing back an intermediate target of 65 aircraft initially set for summer 2023 from late July to early 2024.

The two leaders were speaking at the first “investor day” in four years.

Guillaume Faury has not ruled out that Airbus will eventually embark on a share buyback, while acknowledging that the aircraft manufacturer, which is trying to rebuild cash reserves depleted by the health crisis, “was not not there yet”.

The launch of the A220-500 would allow Airbus to initiate the process of replacing its A320neo, its goose that lays the golden egg, in the extremely competitive single-aisle segment that it currently dominates.

(Tim Hepher, French version Nicolas Delame, edited by Kate Entringer and Jean-Michel Bélot)










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