PARIS (Reuters) – Airbus delivered 58 airplanes in November, leaving itself the task of speeding up monthly deliveries to 82 in December to reach an end-year target of 600, company data showed on Tuesday.
The European planemaker booked 318 new orders after a busy Dubai Airshow, but removed or took cancelations for 75 jets including 28 A320neos for Mexico’s Interjet, which halted operations last December and has been in debt talks.
Between January and November, Airbus delivered 518 jets and sold 610, or a net total of 368 after adjusting for cancellations, the company said in a monthly bulletin.
Airbus deliveries frequently surge in the final month of the year but supply chain problems have dampened the pace of deliveries from Hamburg in Germany, industry sources say.
Airline executives say a handful of deliveries have been pushed back into next year.
November deliveries were nonetheless slightly ahead of expectations. Reuters last week reported that Airbus deliveries were expected to be in the mid-50s in November.
Airbus handed over 21 aircraft in the last week of the month compared with 15 in the last week of October.
Interjet meanwhile plans to resume flights in 2022 with 10 leased Airbus airplanes after shutting down a year ago when its already-suffering finances were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, company representatives said last week.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Mark Potter)
