Airbus Says A320neos Are Delayed

Airbus is again warning that airlines will need to exercise their last sliver of patience for the delivery of A320neo family aircraft for the remainder of the decade as fresh delays loom.

The planemaker has begun warning airlines that deliveries scheduled for 2027 and 2028 will be affected, with impacts stretching into several months. Airbus’ best-selling A321neo will bear the brunt of the impact.

Unfortunately, while seemingly an isolated pushback in expected deliveries, this will cause further ripple effects, as the manufacturer has not been able to meet delivery timelines across any program for the past decade.

What Airbus Has Said To Airlines

According to Bloomberg, Airbus has advised specific unnamed customers that A320neo family jets will arrive several months later than expected if deliveries are scheduled for 2027 and 2028.

Airbus’ fresh delays come as yet another setback for airlines awaiting their new aircraft, whether for planned network growth or basic renewal, which will now have to take a step back to mitigate these latest delays.

Industry briefings in recent months had highlighted the prospect of delays for the A320neo family as bottlenecks in supply chains were not easing, particularly regarding the availability of Pratt & Whitney engines and CFM LEAP-1A engines.

As a consequence of the engines, among other factors, including reworks on fuselage panels, tooling constraints, and further complexities in the lengthy production process, meeting output and contracted delivery windows has become next to impossible.

Airbus hasn’t publicly confirmed the 2027 and 2028 delivery slips; however, this type of reporting isn’t shocking and follows IndiGo’s guidance this year that its A321XLR jets will not arrive at the intended rate.

Airbus’ A320neo Problem Has Been Long

For Airbus, the recent guidance isn’t a one-time occurrence; the entire 2020s have been marked by an inability to increase production, as well as by growing demand and purchases after the COVID-19 pandemic halted growth and new orders.

As the backlog for the A320neo program has grown, Airbus hasn’t been able to keep up. When paired with a plethora of issues that have impacted output, the rising backlog and low output rates have raised alarm bells and put pressure on the manufacturer.

Earlier in the decade, engine shortages forced many planes to be parked, a situation known as gliders. These planes, while completed, lacked engines and thus couldn’t be delivered to airlines, let alone complete important test flights to validate their systems.

Beyond this, the program’s simple success, while fantastic on the surface, has come back to bite Airbus in its current state. Demand being so strong and now ensuring deliveries continue into the 2030s, with sold-out years making availability scarce, is one thing for executives to rant and rave about, proving the jets are succeeding.

However, when engine durability concerns remain, and other ongoing supplier problems persist, scaling production to meet demand is not possible. Airbus has been targeting the 75 figure across the family for years, but it continues to struggle to meet this metric due to internal and external pressures.

With each year bringing more delays and airlines missing the delivery windows they expected for planes, it becomes a miracle if a jet arrives even within weeks of initial expectations. These persistent delays have a catastrophic impact on an airline’s ability to scale and renew, and, amid persistent economic volatility, this hurts.

Not only have airlines now sought to sue for damages, but the lasting impact on Airbus’ unstable delivery position is also visible in its finances, monthly output figures, and overall image. These new delays, coming just weeks after reports that the A350 is also facing fresh delays, ensure that the remainder of the decade will continue to see supply chain problems cited.

Why The Airbus A321neo?

While the A320neo family is the culprit behind the fresh delays, the A321neo is specifically reported as the most affected, which is a problem in itself, given the appeal and backlog this variant and its derivatives have developed over time.

The high-capacity aircraft is Airbus’ most popular model now. With well over half of the program’s orders attributable to this model, it sits at the centre of so many airlines’ future growth plans. But with persistent delays in the ability to deliver planes, things are becoming challenging,

That very popularity that has risen so dramatically has placed greater demands on the assembly and supply chains, revealing what it takes for such a simple stretch to come to life on the production floor. With the A321XLR also introducing further modifications, these non-radical changes balloon out in their complexity when a business is already feeling the pressure from suppliers.

When all these compounds are considered, they amplify minor issues across the A321neo and disrupt the ability to produce planes at the required rate. As delivery slots continue to be snapped up, every month-long delay has a ripple effect not just on those affected in that month but also on those 3 months later, who then receive pushback as output isn’t scaled to make up for the delays.

All aircraft programs are feeling it, and even over at Boeing, things have not improved enough to achieve stability on their end, either. This has become the new industry norm, and while airlines must be patient because it is beyond their control, they are not happy about it.