Airbus SAS, the world’s biggest commercial planemaker, will continue to ramp up jetliner production “progressively” as orders climb, the head of parent company European Aeronautic, Defence & Space said today.
“The market is very good for the time being,” EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois said in an interview. The jet market “goes up and down” and Airbus is tapping current demand by “increasing the production rate of all our planes,” he said.
Airbus won more orders in the first half than in the whole of 2010 while handing over 258 planes to customers, only eight more than in the first six months of 2010, it said July 7. The Toulouse, France-based company will carry on boosting output of its A320, A330 and A380 models to manage the backlog, Gallois said at the opening of a factory in Ghimbav, central Romania.
A380 superjumbo output will reach 25 planes this year, Gallois said, declining to disclose the rate for 2012 because it’s “market-sensitive.” Production of the widebody A330 is at 8.5 a month and will rise to 10 by mid-2013, while the single-aisle A320 will go from 38 jets a month in August to 42 in the second part of next year, he reiterated.
Airbus, the No. 1 planemaker since overtaking Boeing in 2003, is ramping up the build rate as airlines and leasing companies refresh their fleets with more fuel-efficient planes.
Boeing produced 31.5 of its 737 narrowbodies in March and that’s set to rise in two steps to 38 by 2013 and as high as 42 later. The Chicago-based company delivered 222 planes in the first half, unchanged from a year earlier.
Romanian investment
EADS’s Premium Aerotec unit is spending more than 40 million euros ($US56 million) on the Ghimbav factory, which will manufacture and assemble metal parts for the A320, A330 and A380 models, Gallois said. Romania will provide 19.4 million euros of funding by 2013, when the plant reaches full production, Finance Minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu told reporters at a briefing.
“Romania is the country where we have invested the most, besides our home countries,” Gallois said. EADS may also consider investment to make helicopter parts, he said.
Premium Aerotec was spun off as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paris- and Munich-based EADS in 2009.
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