Airbus acknowledges it is experiencing pressure on pricing in the widebody sector, as it seeks to establish a stronger presence in the market.
The airframer – which ended A380 production in 2021, after weak sales – is focusing on restoring pre-crisis manufacturing rates for its A350, and developing the A350 freighter variant.
Chief executive Guillaume Faury, speaking during a full-year briefing on 15 February, said that pricing on the single-aisle A320neo family was “holding” and “performing reasonably well”. Airbus has a backlog of more than 7,000 A320neo-family jets.
But Faury says there is a “bit of a different situation” in the widebody market.
“We wanted to take the benefit of current periods, with very strong products at Airbus, to grow our market share, to improve our position on widebodies,” he says.
“That’s what we accomplished last year, we’re quite satisfied with what we have done.”
But he says that, campaign by campaign, the competition with Boeing has been “very aggressive”.
“Pricing of the widebodies remains quite under pressure,” he says.
Airbus secured gross orders for 300 A350s last year – and 281 net – including 15 A350 freighters.
But while its A330neo family took gross orders for 37 aircraft, cancellations left a year-end net total of just eight, and the net figure for the A330 programme overall was negative when the A330-200 and -300 models are included.
Airbus is aiming to return to producing 10 A350s monthly in 2026 and it is seeking to reach a monthly build rate of four A330s this year.
