Airbus is not yet out of turbulences

Airbus is not yet out of turbulences, comments French magazine L’Express. The weekly goes back over the “accumulation of difficulties” Airbus had to face lately: the cancellation of the plant-sale programme, which weakens the Power 8 plan; the latest delay to the A380’s manufacturing, likely to lead to new reorganisation and penalty costs; the everweakening dollar, which eats away productivity gains. Now the company also has to cope with a new and even more worrying trend: an economic recession that could lead to a slowdown in air traffic growth. Several smaller airlines have already gone bankrupt, while others are expected to postpone their aircraft order plans. Engaged in a race against the clock, Airbus must “imperatively rebalance its activities in the US in order to cut its dependence on the dollar”, points out Yan Derocles, of Oddo Securities. The recent selection of US-based Spirit AeroSystems as a supplier for the A350 XWB programme is a symbol of Airbus’s new direction. Challenges magazine stresses that US suppliers, but also Russian and Chinese ones, are sure to win a lion’s share of the programme. The weekly adds that UBS is “very pessimistic” about EADS’s future, nonetheless, and forecasts an 11-12% drop of the group’s share value over the coming months. L’Express, Challenges