Airbus hit by problems as Boeing rebounds

Reversal shows how quickly script can flip

- BENEDIKT KAMMEL

An employee works on an A320 at the Airbus assembly plant in Tianjin, China.

(REUTERS)

As Boeing Co lurched from one crisis to the next last year, its European rival quietly went about churning out aircraft, with Airbus SE Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury routinely reminding his staff to remain humble.

Mr Faury was well aware how quickly the tables can turn in an industry that only knows two main players. And last week brought an unwelcome reminder that Airbus, too, isn’t immune to the production woes bedevilling aircraft manufacturing, with supply and worker shortages being acute issues years after the pandemic ended.

Early Wednesday, Airbus was forced to revise its aircraft delivery target for the year, an important metric the company had long maintained was achievable, even as the warning alarms sounded louder. But after discovering that a little-known supplier from Spain had delivered out-of-spec aircraft panels, Airbus was finally forced into reverse, underscoring just how dependent the €155 billion ($181 billion) company’s fortunes are on a still-shaky, far-flung network of smaller manufacturers.

It wasn’t the only piece of bad news Airbus doled out in the past few days. On Nov 28, the France-based company called for an urgent software revision for a fleet of about 6,000 A320 aircraft after discovering a possible fault in the way the computers interact with flight controls. The A320 family is the company’s most popular product.