The aircraft manufacturer decided to reduce its production rates by 42% compared to normal in order to adjust to the air transport crisis. A decision that comes when the aeronautical group must announce its restructuring plan affecting several thousand positions in the next few days.
Airbus had given itself until the end of June to adjust its production rates in the face of the air traffic crisis. The German Michael Schoellhorn, Deputy Managing Director, has just announced that Airbus has managed to find “a point of equilibrium which places us at a point relatively close to our forecasts for market development”. In concrete terms, the adjustment in production corresponds to a 42% drop in production rates instead of the 33% decided at the start of the crisis. By family of aircraft, this means that production of the A320 and A321 goes from 60 to 40 aircraft per month while the long-haul A350 is only produced six copies per month against 9.5 before the crisis. Finally, the A330, which was already losing momentum before the Covid crisis, saw its rates drop from 3.5 planes to two monthly planes.
Production halved in 2020
However, if necessary Airbus does not exclude to lower the rates of the Airbus A320 according to the pace of recovery even if Michael Schoellhorn said that 40 units per month represented “still a pace with which the group felt comfortable”. The difficulty for Airbus was to find the right balance of production both to deliver the customers who need their new planes without producing a stock of planes without a customer while maintaining a sufficient industrial flow to supply its chain of suppliers and subcontractors. According to our calculations with this new production rate, the Blagnac firm should produce around 432 aircraft this year against a forecast before the crisis of 880 aircraft, a drop of more than 50%.
In May, Airbus delivered only 24 aircraft, received no new orders but also did not undergo a cancellation. Few airlines purely cancel orders because in these cases the deposits paid at the signing of the contract are lost. Companies therefore prefer to negotiate delays and postponements of deliveries. EasyJet recently announced that it had finalized the delivery dates for 32 Airbus aircraft. Their delivery has been delayed due to the pandemic. The low cost company has indicated that 24 aircraft will be delivered between the years 2025 and 2027. On the other hand, the delivery of eight other planes, which was to take place during 2020, has been postponed to 2022.
Imminent restructuring plan
This readjustment of production was a necessary step for the management of Airbus before launching a vast plan modestly called “adjustment”. It would concern the abolition of 10,000 or more jobs and could be announced in the coming days “or even next week” says a trade unionist. The eleven European factories of Airbus as well as the world headquarters in Toulouse would be affected by the plan which would favor the non-renewal of retirements, the freezing of hirings, the incentive to voluntary departures, etc.
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