Airbus CEO Says Year-End Delivery Goal Is ‘A Tough Journey’

(Bloomberg) — Airbus SE Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury said that hitting a goal of 770 aircraft deliveries this year will be a sprint over the final weeks as the planemaker pushes to reach an already reduced target. 

“I’ve seen too many years where we had the last minute,” Faury said in an interview in Brussels, where he was attending a conference. “It’s a tough journey and we’re a bit late compared to what we were expecting. 770 is still our reference and we’re working against that reference, and hopefully it’s going to work.”

For next year, Faury said the planemaker will decide “as late as we can” on an annual output goal, after Airbus lowered its target earlier in the year. Aircraft deliveries are a closely watched metric, providing insight into the company’s production processes and the health of the supply chain. 

Factors that will determine the goal will be engine makers’ ability to provide their components, Faury said, as well as supplier Spirit AeroSystem Holdings Inc. ramping up volumes of the so-called section 15, the composite center fuselage part of Airbus’s A350 widebody model.

Airbus has repeatedly cautioned that supply-chain bottlenecks and issues with engines are preventing the company from raising output to levels it had aimed to achieve. In June, the European planemaker pared back its delivery guidance to 770 units from 800, and also pushed back by a year the timeline to ramp up output of its popular A320neo family of single-aisle jets to 75 units a month.

Faury also said he’s optimistic that possible tariffs under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump won’t hurt the company. 

“We all depend on each other, we benefit from each other,” Faury said. “If you put tariffs in this ecosystem, you’re damaging everyone, especially if there’s retaliation. So I think it should not be coming.”

Still, should levies be enacted “we’ll have to adapt and react but I don’t see the benefit for anyone by doing this,” he said. 

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