Airbus sold 60 aircraft and delivered 122 in the first quarter, the European planemaker said on Thursday, outpacing the first three months of last year amid signs airlines are starting to emerge from the financial crisis. None of Airbus' customers cancelled any plane orders between January and March, the EADS subsidiary added in a statement.
First-quarter deliveries included three A380 superjumbos. The company aims to deliver at least 20 of the planes in 2010, with each aircraft worth $346 million at current list prices. The total figures compared with 22 gross orders and 116 deliveries in the first quarter of last year, which saw a sharp downturn in orders but record plane production due to the time it takes to build planes ordered during a previous boom.
The latest order tally showed 49 aircraft were sold in March, including 25 A350-900s to United Airlines and 24 A330s to Malaysia Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines HA.O. Rival Boeing won 100 gross orders between January 1 and March 30. Cumulative net orders for the year stood at 83 aircraft after 17 cancellations, according to its website.
Industry association IATA said last week that airlines were climbing out of recession, with further strong increases in passenger and freight traffic in Feburary. World airlines should be back in the black in 2011, after an expected loss of about $2.8 billion in 2010, IATA had said earlier that month.
Comments
Comments are closed.