US Airways Move Won’t Disrupt Airbus 2010 Production Plan
Source: | Filed in
Aerospace | 
Subscribe to Savvy Investor via RSS
11/24/09By David Pearson
PARIS (Dow Jones) -The decision by US Airways (LCC) to defer the delivery of 54 Airbus jets “isn’t a bolt out of the blue,” and has already been taken into account in Airbus’s 2010 production planning, a spokesman for the Toulouse, France-based plane maker said Tuesday.
The airline’s deferral request had been under discussion for some time, the Airbus official said.
He was unable to comment on whether U.S. Airways would incur penalties. “Typically, this depends on the terms of the contract and how close to delivery the planes are when the deferral request is made.”
As reported earlier Tuesday, the airline announced plans to defer 54 new aircraft scheduled for delivery between next year and 2012 until at least 2013, in a bid to improve liquidity and ease its strained finances.
The airline expects the move to improve its available cash by about $150 million this year, and by a total of $450 million by the end of next year. The deferral will reduce the company’s aircraft capital expenditure by about $2.5 billion over the next three years.
In addition, some aircraft deliveries set to start in 2015 will be postponed to 2017.
U.S. Airways will take delivery of two A320 and two A330 aircraft in 2010 and an additional 24 A320 family aircraft in 2011 and 2012.
Airbus expects to deliver about 490 aircraft in 2009, up from 483 in 2008. The company, a wholly-owned unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. NV (EAD.FR), reduced its production rate for medium range, single aisle aircraft to 34 a month from 36, and company officials have said there are no plans at present to reduce the production rate further, although this can’t be excluded given the depressed financial state of many customer airlines.
Earlier this year, Airbus set up a committee to monitor the financial health of customer airlines to get early warning of when they might encounter financial difficulties, to help them find the financing necessary for them to take delivery of the jets they have ordered, and to monitor their needs in terms of fleet planning.
