PARIS (Reuters) – Frenetic selling in the closing weeks of 2017 saw Airbus (AIR.PA) overhaul Boeing’s (BA.N) recent lead in the global jet market to win their annual order contest for the fifth year running, but doubts remain over the future of its flagship A380.
The European planemaker said on Monday net orders after cancellations rose 52 percent to 1,109 aircraft in 2017, placing it ahead of Boeing’s 912 net orders. Airbus posted 1,229 gross or unadjusted orders compared with Boeing’s 1,053.
Airbus confirmed it had met its core 2017 target of more than 700 deliveries by releasing 718 jets to customers in 2017, up 4 percent from the previous year despite industrial delays.
Boeing remained the world’s largest jetmaker for the sixth year running with a record total of 763 deliveries.
Planemaking chief Fabrice Bregier said engine supplier Pratt & Whitney (UTX.N) had turned the corner on delays that had disrupted single-aisle aircraft output, and predicted close to 800 deliveries in 2018.
He predicted that a record backlog of more than 7,000 aircraft, now on order and waiting to be built, would allow Airbus to lift deliveries beyond those of Boeing in 2020.
That included no new orders and two cancellations for the A380 superjumbo, whose future is under threat due to low sales. Boeing also suffered cancellations for its competing 747.
Bregier confirmed plans, first reported by Reuters, to reduce A380 production to as few as six aircraft per year, compared with 15 deliveries last year.
Airbus currently plans to lower output to eight a year.
Airbus is talking to the main A380 customer Emirates about buying about three dozen more of the planes in order to secure future production.
But Leahy confirmed a Reuters report that Airbus was looking at shutting the A380 if the Emirates deal – already postponed at last November’s Dubai Airshow – fell through. In that case, Airbus would have “no choice” but to close production, he said.
(This story has been corrected to read “2018” instead of “2017” in paragraph 5)
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