by Ben Blanchard

Taoyuan, Taiwan (Reuters) – The number of disruptions of the supply chain delaying the delivery of aircraft decreases and Airbus manages to manage them much more efficiently, a high leader of the group said on Monday.

The European aircraft manufacturer, which delivered 766 planes in 2024 and has only missed its forecasts very little, has faced industrial delays for some time partially due to problems in the supply chain of the aerospace sector, difficulties which have also complicated the restoration of its American rival Boeing.

Addressing journalists in Taiwan, the executive vice-president of Airbus in charge of sales of commercial aircraft, Benoît de Saint-Exupéry, said that the problems of the supply chain were difficult to settle, which creates many disturbances with several suppliers.

“We believe that these disturbances will unfortunately last a little longer, but we () manage much better and we anticipate this supply chain with much more efficiency than before thanks to the lessons that we learned during the pandemic,” he explained.

“I see it as an improvement, but it will take a little more time before we found our levels before the pandemic. For the moment, it is at the level of the engines that there is the most congestion,” he added during a speech in a hotel at Taiwan’s main airport in Taoyuan.

“We do not receive the engines we need to deliver the devices,” he said.

Benoît de Saint-Exupéry was in Taiwan to sign a contract on the sale of 10 Airbus 1350-1000 with the largest airline on the island, China Airlines.

In December, China Airlines declared that he wanted to distribute the contracts for the renewal of her long-haul fleet between Airbus and Boeing and buy cargo planes from the American aircraft manufacturer as part of an agreement worth almost $ 12 billion (11.10 billion euros).

The airline intends to buy 10 Boeing 777-9 and 10 Airbus A350-1000 as well as four 777-9 catalog aircraft for $ 11.9 billion. Deliveries should start in 2029.

“We were in competition for the entire contract but we knew that it would be difficult,” Benoît de Saint-Exupéry told Reuters, adding that “the company is an operator of (Boeing) 777-300, therefore their decision made sense”.

The president of China Airlines, Kao Shing-Hwang, announced that the new A350s, which will be added to their existing fleet of 15 A350-900 aircraft, would allow the airline to add capacity to its popular long-haul destinations such as New York and London, specifying that demand was solid both for passenger flights and cargo flights.

“I think we are going to have very good results for passenger and cargo flights this year,” added Kao Shing-Hwang.

(Written by Ben Blanchard, Pauline Foret)

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