Just days after Airbus announced a 35 per cent drop in deliveries for the month of March, Reuters has reported that company chief executive Guillaume Faury will be looking into multiple customer requests to defer deliveries.
The announcement was made as part of a video message shared to the company’s annual shareholder meeting, which took place this week.
At the AGM, shareholders approved all resolutions put forth, including the appointment of two new directors. On 23 March, Airbus withdrew the scheduled 2019 dividend payments from the meeting agenda, in a bid to bolster liquidity throughout the crisis.
Together with announcing that delivery delays for customers would be considered on a case-by-case basis, Faury said that the company would be suspending its 2020 forecast for deliveries in entirety.
Reuters reported that Airbus plans to cut production across both narrow-body and wide-body aircraft, to reflect falling customer demand. Faury said that the targets involved a ‘reasonable’ level of production.
Airbus’ reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic reflect broader trends across the industry. Social-distancing measures have had a catastrophic effect not only on demand but also across the greater aviation supply chain.
With a significant backlog of orders, Airbus will likely be looking to return to full-scale production as soon as practically possible.
