FARNBOROUGH (dpa-AFX) – Airbus (Airbus SE (ex EADS)) and Boeing would like to expand the production of their medium-haul jets again after the Corona crisis, but the manufacturers of the engines cannot keep up. “Not all engine builders started ramping up production early enough, even though we told them to,” Airbus boss Guillaume Faury told the Financial Times (Wednesday) at the Farnborough Airshow southwest of London. Airlines were conspicuously reluctant to order new aircraft at the fair. Things look particularly thin at the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer Airbus.
Since the start of the trade fair on Monday, the European manufacturer has received an order from the US airline Delta for twelve small A220 passenger jets. On Wednesday, the British low-cost airline easyJet also confirmed an order for 56 medium-haul jets from the A320neo model family, which it had announced in June.
The US aircraft manufacturer Boeing had already received an order for 100 medium-haul jets in the long version 737 Max 10 from Delta Air Lines on Monday. Since then, Boeing has collected a few more orders, primarily from aircraft financiers. And the Vietnamese company Vietjet secured a major order for 200 Boeing 737 Max, which both sides had already negotiated and announced before the pandemic.
On Wednesday, Azerbaijan Airlines signed a preliminary contract for four 787 “Dreamliner” widebody jets. The model is in high demand among airlines, but Boeing has been banned from delivering new machines for more than a year due to quality defects in production. For the manufacturer, such problems add up to the difficulties that the competition and companies from other industries are also struggling with.
The Farnborough Airshow alternates annually with the Paris Arosalon at Le Bourget Airport. In the past two years, events had been canceled due to the pandemic.
In the years 2015 to 2019, the manufacturers announced an average of around 800 orders at the major trade fairs in summer, calculates aviation analyst Ken Herbert from the Canadian bank RBC. Normally, most orders are announced on the first two days of the fair. On Thursdays around noon, the manufacturers draw a line under their sales successes. The Farnborough Airshow officially ends on Friday (July 22nd).
Meanwhile, Airbus boss Faury estimates that the bottlenecks in the supply chains will continue for about a year. “It’s bad everywhere,” said the manager of the “Financial Times”. Global supply chains are struggling to function normally. “And this isn’t just an aerospace problem.” Added to this are the industry-wide labor shortages, higher inflation and rising energy costs.
Airbus currently has 26 so-called gliders around. That’s the tongue-in-cheek name for almost finished new aircraft that only lack the drives under the wings. The manufacturer is currently producing around 50 of its medium-haul jets from the A320neo model family a month, after cutting back production from around 60 to 40 at the beginning of the corona pandemic.
Faury wants to increase emissions to 65 machines per month by next summer – that would be a record in itself. By 2025, production is set to increase to 75 pieces a month – that’s how full the group’s order books are. But the engine builders lagged behind the rapid expansion of production.
Customers of the twin-engine A320neo jets can choose between the Leap engine from CFM and the geared turbofan engine from Pratt & Whitney (P&W). CFM belongs to the French manufacturer SAFRAN and the US group General Electric. The Munich-based engine builder MTU (MTU Aero Engines) is also working on the drive from the Raytheon Technologies subsidiary (Raytheon Technologies) P&W. Both CFM and P&W have given assurances after the recent backlog that they are back on track, said Faury.
However, the Airbus target of 75 aircraft per month in 2025 threatens to wobble. Pratt & Whitney will not be able to deliver the required number of drives until 2026, said the responsible division manager at Pratt & Whitney, Rick Deurloo, in Farnborough.
The Airbus rival Boeing from the USA only has to contend with CFM and its Leap engine for its medium-haul jet 737 Max. The American-French company exclusively supplies all engines for the type of aircraft that was not allowed to take off for 20 months worldwide in 2019 and 2020 after two fatal crashes. Boeing is now building 31 machines per month again, but this is still well below the level before the flight ban.
The head of the commercial aircraft division, Stan Deal, also justified the fact that Boeing is not ramping up production on Sunday with the lack of engines. The group aligns its production with the number of available drives./stw/ngu//he
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