Aerospace Industry Faces Broad Post-Crisis Hurdles: Airbus
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Aerospace Industry Faces Broad Post-Crisis Hurdles: Airbus

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Antonio Gozain By Antonio Gozain | Senior Journalist and Industry Analyst - Thu, 12/08/2022 - 17:54

The global aerospace industry is facing a slower-than-expected recovery from the pandemic, with disruption spreading across the supply chain and exposing several shortcomings and the fragile links with other sectors, said Guillaume Faury, CEO, Airbus.

"There is an enormous problem in bringing the industrial supply chain back to strength worldwide, in the aviation world but not only in aviation. There is a lot of interdependence between the aerospace supply chain and electronic cards and components, raw materials and the availability of energy and skills at a worldwide level," said Faury to the AJPAE French aerospace media association.

As it happens in most industries, China-based companies are major suppliers of diverse kinds of components within the aerospace sector. The country’s stringent COVID-19 controls, which initially helped it resume work while the rest of the world struggled with the pandemic in 2020, have now led to more closures. This “start-stop economy” is affecting supply chains worldwide.

"We see these problems spreading through the supply chain and what we, our suppliers and industrial partners... imagined we could do at the start of the year when we built our production plans for 2022 – that did not work out as expected," said Faury.

While supply chain issues impact the entire world, companies face additional hurdles according to the region where they operate, said Faury. Energy shortages weigh more heavily in the EU whereas the US industry is more concerned about shortages of labor, he added. Airbus assembles a portion of aircraft and derives a large proportion of parts from suppliers in the US.

"Getting things back into order after COVID-19 is taking a lot longer than we thought we could reasonably do," said Faury. "That does not mean production is not increasing – we are going up quite sharply – but it was not 'off-on'. We were able to cut output very strongly, very quickly that was obviously easier than getting it going again," he added.

Airbus Drops 2022 Delivery Forecast, Softens Output Goal

Airbus abandoned a numerical forecast for jet deliveries of “around 700” in 2022, reported Reuters. The target is now out of reach but the planemaker will not fall “materially short” of the estimate, said Airbus.

The planemaker confirmed that it had delivered a net total of 563 aircraft between January and November after adjusting for the earlier cancellation of two jets caught up in Western sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war. In November 2022 alone, Airbus delivered 68 aircraft.

Mexico saw the arrival of almost 40 of Airbus’ aircraft delivered in 2022. Ultra-low-cost-carriers Volaris and Viva Aerobus have found success operating the French planemaker’s jets as they continue to grow their fleets. Volaris has received 22 A320s and A321s throughout the year, while Viva Aerobus increased its fleet by 17 Airbus jets.

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