PARIS, April 18 (Reuters) – Airbus (AIR.PA) has began notifying airways about supply delays in 2024 for its best-selling A320neo household of jets, with a number of hundred of the single-aisle planes set to be postponed by as a lot as three months, business sources mentioned on Tuesday.
Airbus confirmed unspecified delays for 2024 in a press release to Reuters however mentioned they didn’t mirror any worsening of provide chain issues because it revised manufacturing plans earlier this yr. It reaffirmed manufacturing targets for 2024 and past.
“We already communicated in December on the impression for 2023 and at the moment are speaking about 2024 intimately,” Airbus mentioned by electronic mail.
For airways, the most recent wave of notices marks the primary concrete indication of provide constraints past this yr.
The delays notably have an effect on the bigger and in-demand A321neo variant, which now represents over half of Airbus deliveries, the sources mentioned.
Airways and leasing firms have protested in latest months over a trickle of short-term delay notices amid ongoing provide chain issues. Airbus is now giving extra advance discover.
“We attempt to be as clear as attainable to supply visibility for our prospects,” an Airbus spokesperson mentioned.
Two airline business sources mentioned they had been nonetheless struggling to seek out the readability wanted for community planning, nonetheless. “We’re nonetheless being drip-fed,” one of many sources mentioned, including the delays advised provide chains weren’t considerably enhancing.
The delays don’t thus far embrace alterations to the schedule for 2023, which has already been trimmed again to focus on 720 deliveries, unchanged from an preliminary goal for final yr.
Analysts say the jury remains to be out on whether or not Airbus will hit that concentrate on after a weak first quarter. Large-body airplane deliveries are seen below probably the most strain.
PENALTIES DEBATE
Aerospace and different producers are feeling widespread strain from bottlenecks in provide chains. Against this, Airbus and Boeing are assured demand for brand new jets stays strong.
Airbus is at present the world’s largest planemaker as Boeing slowly recovers from the 737 MAX security disaster and manufacturing delays on the 787. Boeing introduced a recent supplier-related halt to 737 deliveries final week.
However within the first quarter, Airbus deliveries fell under Boeing’s for the primary time on a quarterly foundation because it took over the CSeries passenger jet from Canada’s Bombardier in 2018 and added it to its portfolio because the A220.
The delays for 2024 prolong the impression of provide chain issues stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak right into a fifth yr.
That would rekindle arguments over whether or not airways must be compensated, the sources mentioned.
For now, planemakers are principally holding to the place that supplier-related delays are “excusable” in contractual phrases, which means consumers should not owed penalties.
However this yr strain has been rising on planemakers to start out paying penalties and cease the clock on inflation-adjustment clauses.
“You probably have spent years telling everybody that your core worth lies in being an integrator, then sooner or later you need to begin proudly owning the issues of your individual provide chain,” an individual concerned in discussions with planemakers advised Reuters.
Airbus and Boeing have defended themselves over supply delays, with a Boeing government telling the Airline Economics convention in Dublin in January that growing manufacturing after COVID-19 lockdowns was “not as straightforward as an on/off change.”
Reporting by Tim Hepher; Modifying by Matt Scuffham
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