Monday, June 1, 2020

Airbus to trim down plane production further?

With the pandemic still residing around the globe, Airbus looks to trim down its plane production further as airlines face shortage of funds.

In the month of April, Airbus slashed its top selling A320-series production by as much as one-third for one or two quarters to cope with the negligible demand from airlines that have parked planes because of the virus.
Without a vaccine, the confidence in flying could remain depressed for sometime. Although, recently Airbus live streamed on Facebook explaining on how the air would be re-circulated every 2-3 minutes. A basic idea of how it works is that the air in cabin is made of two parts, half of which goes out of the aircraft and replaced by fresh air from outside and gets heated.
The other half undergoes re-circulation which goes through HEPA filters and through it fresh air (more than 99.9%) comes in the cabin. Further details can be seen on the Airbus' Facebook page.

Nevertheless, corporations are finding out ways and means to how things can get back to normal.

Coming back, despite the popular A320-series accounts for the bulk of production and inflow of funds, Airbus only managed to handover 12 models in the month of April.
Moreover, under wide-body category, one A350-900 and one A330CEO was delivered only.
Ultimately, the backlog of aircraft remaining to be delivered as of 30th April stood at 7,645, which comprised of 6,217 A320 Family aircraft, 529 A220s, 322 A330s, 568 A350 XWBs and nine A380s.

Looking at these numbers it is imminent that Airbus will have to trim their plane production further and as this happens the consequence will be the elimination of jobs further.

Its true this is the sharpest downturn ever in aviation industry. Although, looking at the current situation, it will take atleast an year for the aviation industry to get back to normal.
It can be expected by 2022, the manufacturers will be able to increase their production rates and clear their backlog. However, this is a very speculative assumption.

When do you think will the aviation industry get back to normal? Would love to know from you in the comments!

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