Airbus Hails 2007 a Successful Year

Airbus, a leading aircraft manufacturer, recently announced the company delivered 453 aircraft in 2007, 19 more than in 2006. The deliveries included 367 A320-Family aircraft, six A300-Freighters, 79 A330/A340’s and the first “all-new, eco-efficient” A380 to Singapore Airlines.

Airbus president and chief executive officer, Tom Enders, said: “2007 was a challenging but also a successful year for Airbus, and we were successful in the market and mastered the industrial challenges of production, the timely delivery of the first A380 and the implementation of the Airbus Power 8 turn-around program.”

He added, “2008 will be as challenging on all fronts, but I am sure that, with the dedication of our people and all involved, we shall master them, and on the commercial side, I anticipate that our order intake will be above our deliveries.”

In 2007 Airbus achieved 1,340 net orders valued at 107 billion euros and 1,458 new gross orders valued at 123 billion euros. They include 913 A320-Family aircrafts, 405 A330’s, A340’s and A350’s and 23 A380’s.

The company claims this demonstrates a strong demand for the Airbus aircraft, with all members of the product family doing extremely well and in particular the newly launched A350 XWB that has achieved 292 new firm orders.

At the end of 2007, Airbus had a backlog of 3,421 aircraft that represents six years of production at steadily increasing production rates and marks the highest backlog in the aviation industry.

The Airbus turn-around program Power 8 exceeded its 2007 targets in its first year delivering cost savings of more than 300 million euros.