Guillaume Faury remains optimistic.

The CEO of the European aerospace group Airbus is sticking to his goals of delivering 700 commercial aircraft to airlines this year and achieving earnings before interest and taxes of 5.5 billion euros adjusted for special effects - despite the slowdown in the global economy and ongoing supply chain problems.

Compared to 2021, that would be a double-digit growth rate.

At that time, the bottom line was 611 aircraft deliveries and 4.9 billion euros in adjusted earnings.

Niklas Zaboji

Economic correspondent in Paris

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While American arch-rival Boeing announced a loss in the billions for the third quarter on Wednesday, Airbus countered on Friday with black figures in all divisions, even if the adjusted result of 836 million euros was below analysts' expectations.

In a “complex operational environment”, Faury assured journalists that a solid performance had been achieved, while also benefiting from the cheap euro.

At EUR 4.5 billion, he therefore expects free cash flow for this year to be EUR 1 billion higher than previously, i.e. cash inflow from operating business.

With the delivery target of 700 aircraft, the Airbus boss swears his company on a sporty end-of-year sprint.

As of the end of September, only 437 had been completed.

So if Airbus had less than 150 machines on average in the first three quarters, 263 would have to be handed over to customers in the final quarter.

Aircraft deliveries are an important indicator in the industry, because only then does the majority of the sales amount flow.

Because there were no engines in the first half of the year, Faury had to reduce this year's delivery target from 720 to 700 in July.

No acute worries about China

The optimism of the Airbus boss is surprising insofar as he openly reports on ongoing supply bottlenecks.

"The supply chain remains fragile due to the cumulative impact of Covid, the war in Ukraine, energy supply issues and tight labor markets," Faury said on Friday.

You can see a stabilization, not only on the part of the engine manufacturers, but parts are still arriving late and the ability to plan individual production steps is impaired.

According to Faury, the bottlenecks will continue at least until the middle of next year.

The strong demand from airlines for aircraft stands in clear contrast to the problems on the production side.

Faury emphasized that customers have a strong appetite for new machines with an improved fuel balance.

The aircraft market has recovered faster in recent months than many had expected.

In fact, Airbus can hardly save itself from orders.

Sales manager Christian Scherer landed 647 orders in the first three quarters, cancellations already deducted.

For comparison: In the same period last year there were 133, and in the pre-Corona years 2018 and 2019 there were also significantly fewer with 256 and 127.

With an order book of 7,294 machines, Airbus could theoretically produce more than ten years without the need for new orders.

However, this also applies to a lesser extent to Boeing with 5236 machines in the order book and is therefore not a very meaningful measure of current profitability.

The Airbus boss is not worried about business in China.

The market environment there has become more complex due to the geopolitical tensions and events are being closely monitored, since aircraft are not only exported there, but also manufactured locally.

In the short term, however, one does not expect the market to come under pressure, said Faury.