Guillaume Faury arrived at the Airbus Leadership University assembly hall visibly satisfied. The CEO of Airbus was going to give good news to a group of journalists gathered in Toulouse for the classic presentation of results for the previous year and forecasts for the current year.
Faury reported that his group had invoiced 65,400 million euros in 2023, 11% more, leaving the company’s net profit at 3,789 million, 11% less, with the commercial aviation division, the origin of this aerospace group, being the great tractor of these figures.
Evidence of the rebound in civil aviation was evident in the 735 aircraft delivered over the last 12 months (15%) and in the 2,094 aircraft ordered (155%), a figure that is well above that of 2022. in which requests for the manufacture of new aircraft of all Airbus models were 820 units.
Regarding the types of aircraft delivered, the Airbus chief executive confirmed that the A320 family remains the most popular, with 571 aircraft produced and delivered last year, while the A220s, formerly called C series of the Canadian Bombardier, are increasingly successful and accepted by international airlines, since 68 devices were delivered. Long-haul aircraft were also built and delivered at a good pace, with 32 units of the Airbus A330 and 64 of the brand’s most modern twin-aisle aircraft: the A350.
To meet the order book for the coming years, the company has an industrial plan in place that will increase the monthly production rate. In the case of the A220 built in Canada, it is planned to reach 14 aircraft per month in 2026, while for that year it is expected to reach 76 A320 aircraft built each month. The long-haul variants will also have production increases due to the new demand for two-aisle aircraft: within two years, four A330s and 10 A350s will be built each month.
The helicopter division had a very good performance within the group, with 393 orders, thirty more than in the previous year, highlighting that, in most contracts, in addition to construction, several years of technical assistance and training for crews and technicians. At this point, Faury wanted to highlight the effort it has taken to achieve these results in a geopolitical environment as complicated as 2023.
The defense and space division was responsible for 15,000 million of last year’s turnover, highlighting the contract with the government of Spain for the construction of 16 new C295, a device fully developed and assembled in the San Pablo, Seville, factory. where the eight A400M aircraft delivered have also left. It was also noted that since January 1 of this year, the defense division has changed its structure to focus on three specialties related to military air intelligence systems.
Faury, who appeared accompanied by Thomas Toepfer, the group’s financial director, and Julie Kitcher, director of communications and sustainability at Airbus, wanted to highlight precisely the progress in the Kitcher business, where work is being done on the development of new aircraft models. , the increase in the production of sustainable aviation fuel, new hydrogen-powered aircraft in association with several Nordic companies, new, increasingly lighter materials for all products built, both in commercial and military aviation and helicopters, in addition to progressive digitalization of all processes.
By 2024, Airbus hopes that the bottlenecks caused by problems with some suppliers will be definitively resolved. At the same time, it hopes that to achieve its 2024 objectives there will be no major disruptions in the world economy, in air traffic or in the supply chain, with which in 2024 it is expected to reach the figure of 800 commercial aircraft delivered and one adjusted ebit that moves between 6,500 and 7,500 million euros, for 5,800 million in 2023.
