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Airbus (AIR-1.20%) might yet find a way to meet the lowered expectations it set for itself this year. Reuters, citing sources within the aerospace industry, reports that the French plane-maker delivered 80 planes to its customers in November, which would put a 2024 year-end delivery target within reach.
In June, Airbus told investors it expected to make “around 770 commercial aircraft deliveries.” Through October, the company has officially made 559. With the yet-to-be-confirmed Reuters number in the mix, that would leave Airbus 139 deliveries of its goal. For a sense of whether that’s possible: the company delivered 112 planes last December. The word “around” could give Airbus wiggle room in claiming victory.
When the door plug on a 737 Max plane produced by American rival Boeing (BA-2.01%) blew out mid-flight in January, Airbus looked set to widen a market share gap opened up by Boeing’s prior 737 Max crises, a pair of fatal plane crashes in 2018 and 2019. A Federal Aviation Administration-imposed production slowdown meant Boeing would have to take its foot off the gas while addressing safety and quality-control problems.
Earlier this year, Airbus affirmed its guidance to deliver 800 planes. But then it began to run into its own struggles — such as engine troubles and other supply chain difficulties — and cut that guidance halfway through the year. On top of that, continuing issues with Pratt & Whitney (RTX-0.72%) engines installed on Airbus jets were giving its customers fits.
“I thought we were going to be in a better place,” Christian Scherer, the head of the commercial airliner division at Airbus, told the Wall Street Journal in October. “There’s the whole future to prepare, but now there’s also the present to manage much more than we thought.”