PARIS: Airbus is planning a summit meeting with major suppliers in coming days, amid mounting speculation that it may have to delay planned jet output increases as Europe faces a resurgent Covid-19 crisis, industry sources have said.
Next week’s briefing by Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury for the heads of several suppliers is expected to set the manufacturing tone for the coming year.
Airbus has said it wants to be in shape to raise benchmark A320-family output by 18 per cent to 47 jets a month by July, but the partial rebound in output towards pre-crisis levels of 60 has already slipped to the fourth quarter, according to analysts, and could slip further.
“It looks like the rate of 47 is slipping to the right,” one supply chain source said.
Another supplier said the rate was beyond reach for 2021.
Airbus referred to recent comments by COO Michael Schoellhorn, who last month said the output curve “could also rise a little later or flatter.