Friday, January 8th, 2021
The bottom line is more orders
Corona year ends in a conciliatory way for Airbus
The European aircraft manufacturer Airbus mastered the Corona year better than initially assumed. The company will continue to cut thousands of jobs. But the bottom line was that the order book grew by almost 270 orders.
In the past year, the aviation group Airbus received more aircraft orders than canceled cancellations despite the corona crisis. Net orders came in for 268 machines, as the European company announced in Toulouse. Thanks to a final spurt, Airbus succeeded in delivering 566 jets for the full year. December was therefore the strongest month of the year with 89 deliveries. In the end, however, a good third fewer aircraft were handed over than in the record year 2019.
However, as expected, Airbus remained far away from the 880 deliveries originally targeted for the full year due to the pandemic and its consequences. Nevertheless, the group defended its position as the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. The US rival Boeing had lost the top position to Airbus in 2019 because of the take-off and delivery ban for its most important aircraft type, the 737 Max.
Because the US company was unable to deliver the 737 Max machines and also temporarily stopped production, it was only able to hand over 118 machines across the entire model range to its customers in the first eleven months. Boeing has not yet published the December figures. In addition, Boeing customers canceled more than 500 aircraft between January and November.
500 orders less than 2019
This balance sheet also looks much better at Airbus despite the severe consequences of the pandemic for airlines around the world. In the full year, Airbus received new orders for 383 machines – especially before the outbreak of the pandemic. In return, the group received 115 cancellations. 66 of them came from the first quarter and, according to earlier information from the manufacturer, had nothing to do with the Corona crisis. The bottom line, however, was 500 fewer orders than the previous year. Ultimately, the order backlog fell by almost 300 to 7184 machines.
However, many airlines have postponed the acceptance of aircraft that have already been ordered months or years into the future. This has far-reaching consequences for production at Airbus. In spring, the manufacturer's delivery numbers dropped significantly due to the Corona crisis. Since the summer things have improved a good bit. However, due to the corona-related slump in global air traffic, Airbus and Boeing have significantly reduced their aircraft production and announced the reduction of thousands of jobs.
Many airlines like Lufthansa were only able to save themselves from bankruptcy thanks to state aid. They currently do not need additional jets and would have difficulty paying because of the collapsed income in the flight business. Industry representatives expect that global air traffic will only return to the level of 2019 in a few years.
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