Airbus president and CEO Fabrice Brégier told the world’s aviation media at the company’s recent Innovation Days briefing that “the focus for 2016 is, no surprise, it is to deliver!” The company, part of the wider Airbus Group, is currently seeking to ramp up production and deliveries of its new A350-900 wide-body and re-engined and refined A320neo (new engine option) single-aisle airliners. He noted that deliveries of A350-900s during 2014/15 were in line with the company’s plan. The target for deliveries this year is 50. “We’ve delivered only nine, so 41 to go. We’ll rush to the end of this year to achieve it.” (The A350-900 is the first member of the A350 XWB family.)

Delays have been imposed on A350-900 deliveries by problems in the supply of cabin equipment for the aircraft. He specified that lavatories had been delivered with doors that did not fit properly, denying passengers privacy, and so could not be fitted to the aircraft. A320neo deliveries have been delayed by the late supply of engines by Pratt & Whitney, resulting in a number of A320neo aircraft parked at Airbus final assembly lines, totally complete except for their engines.

Fortunately, the A320neo was designed to take two new-generation engines, the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM geared turbofan and the CFM International LEAP-1A. And here Brégier was able to announce good news. “We got today (May 31) the type certificate for the A320neo which is powered by the CFM LEAP engine.” He pointed out that both types of power plant were “very good engines. We need both”. The first LEAP-1A powered A320neo is expected to start operating in July or August. “This is in line with [the] plan.”

In total, Airbus is planning to deliver 650 airliners this year and Brégier expects to achieve this. Currently, the A320/A320neo order backlog stands at 5 479 aircraft, the A330 backlog at 358 aircraft, the A330neo order book (the first A330neo has not yet flown) at 186 aircraft, the A350 XWB backlog at 780 aircraft and the A380 Superjumbo backlog at 132 aircraft.

“It’s a big backlog,” he said in answer to a question. “We need to ramp up production, to reduce the lead time to customers. . . We don’t see big [sales] campaigns because we’ve won most of them in the past three years! Every airline knows what makes a difference. You need the best aircraft. Whatever the oil price may be, it is cheaper and more effective to fly new aircraft.”

Regarding the simultaneously production ramp-ups for the A320neo and A350 XWB families, “yes,” he acknowledged, “in some areas, we’ll be overstretched. We are managing the priorities.” He noted that December was likely to be a very busy and tight month for the company.

“The market is positive,” he stated in his address. “I am confident we will have a book-to-bill (ratio of orders received to units shipped and billed/invoiced during a specified period) of at least one. Our incremental development strategy is taking shape.” One example is the A350ULR (ultralong range), being developed for Singapore Airlines. “The A321LR [long range] is another example. We’ll come up with other ideas, beyond big ideas like the A330neo.”