Airbus SE last month delivered 39 aircraft while avoiding order cancelations as it battles to keep revenue flowing in a market battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month’s handovers comprised 35 A320-series narrow-body planes and four twin-aisle jets, the Toulouse, France-based company said late on Tuesday.
The overall tally is down 10 planes from July.
Photo: Reuters
Boeing Co said it delivered 13 planes last month, in an update overshadowed by news that handovers of the 787 Dreamliner are to be slowed for checks for a new manufacturing flaw involving gaps in the plane’s horizontal stabilizer that are wider than specified.
Airbus deliveries have so far held up better during the pandemic than its US rival. Boeing continues to wrestle with cancelations of its 737 MAX short-haul plane, grounded last year following two deadly crashes.
The European company has generally managed to persuade airlines including EasyJet PLC and Qatar Airways to defer deliveries rather than walk away from orders outright.
Deferrals might pick up as the virus continues to roil the sector, with new flareups across Europe pushing carriers there to rein in already modest planes for restoring capacity.
Airbus customers that accepted handovers last month included Gulf Air, which took its first A321neo, and Portuguese carrier Orbest, which received an initial A330-900 wide-body.
New sales remain rarities, with Airbus reporting an order for just one new plane, a corporate version of the A320, and Boeing eight.
In related news, China’s International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the country’s biggest airshow, scheduled for November, has been canceled due to the pandemic, the organizer said yesterday, adding that the next one would take place in 2022.
As the global industry reels from the devastating effects of the pandemic, many Western aerospace firms have reduced budgets and some were not planning to attend the airshow in Zhuhai if it had gone ahead, company sources said.
It follows the cancelation of this year’s largest aerospace expo, the UK’s Farnborough International Airshow, because of travel curbs and an industry downturn resulting from the pandemic.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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