Airbus commercial aircraft revenue up 13% year-on-year in Q1 2024

Airbus has reported a Q1 2024 revenue of €12.8 bn ($13.74) amid “the backdrop of an operating environment that shows no sign of improvement,” highlighted CEO Guillaume Fairy, detailing that the French manufacturer “started 2024 with a solid order intake across [its] businesses” and a higher backlog than last quarter. The company ended the quarter with an overall net income of €595 million ($638 million), free cash flow of -€1.8bn ($1.9bn), and a 29% increase in earnings per share of €0.76 ($0.82). The Airbus business segment contributed to €9.17bn ($9.84) of the company’s total revenue, a rise of 13% year-on-year, with an EBIT increase of 154%. Free cash flow before customer financing was ‘mainly driven by the change in working capital, including the planned inventory build-up resulting from the execution of [its] ramp-up plan’. To further support ramp-up, Airbus expects its capital expenditure to “continue to increase in 2024, yet at a lower place relative to previous year,” explained chief financial officer Thomas Toepfer. Revenues generated by Airbus commercial aircraft deliveries increased 13% for the quarter, mainly reflecting the higher number of deliveries, with 142 units delivered during the period. However, the adjusted EBIT related to commercial aircraft activities decreased to €507 million ($544 million), down from €580 million ($622 million) in Q1 2024, ‘with the positive impact from higher deliveries being offset by a slightly less favourable hedge rate as well as investments for preparing the future’. Airbus’ order backlog totalled 8,626 commercial aircraft at the end of March 2024 (slightly up from the full year 2023 total of 8,598), with orders for 170 units placed during the quarter (up 20% from Q1 2023’s total of 56).  For the full year 2024, the company intends to deliver a total of around 800 aircraft, with an adjusted EBIT of between €6.5bn and €7bn ($7bn and $7.5bn). The A220 programme ramp-up continues to work towards a monthly production rate of 14 aircraft a month in 2026, notes Airbus, with Faury not expecting this to be negatively affected by ongoing salary and contract negotiations at its Canadian facility. The A320 family is ‘making progress’ towards 75 units a month, continuing to target four units a month for the A330 in 2024, with the first A321 line in Toulouse “not far from reaching the cruise speed by mid or end of next year” while the second line is anticipated to reach “full steam” by 2027. The A350 production rate will also increase to 12 a month in 2028, with Faury highlighting that the “reputation of the A350 is significantly growing and very positively,” which is “indeed of a nature to progressively help on pricing”. However, Faury also cautioned that as regards supply chain constraints, “we’re still moving out of a situation that was a very tense and difficult one, and it’s still a very competitive environment”. Regarding the recently-announced IndiGo order for 30 A350-900s, Faury also confirmed that Airbus does “not necessarily think that putting a commercial aircraft final assembly line in [in India] is the way to deal with the situation”, despite “the company “growing very significantly in India… in terms of headcount over there”. Airbus also confirmed that the company is “in the early stages of discussions on a variety of options” regarding potential acquisition of elements of Spirit Aerosystems, although it has no further comments to add at this stage.