Airbus Lowers 2025 Delivery Target to 790 Planes

Airbus, the European aerospace giant, announced on Wednesday in Paris that it has lowered its commercial aircraft delivery target for 2025 to around 790 planes, a reduction of 30 from its previous forecast of 820. The revision stems from a supplier quality issue affecting fuselage panels on its bestselling A320 family of jets, which has disrupted production and deliveries during a peak period at year-end.

The problem involves metal panels with incorrect thickness, resulting from a stretching and milling process at Sofitec Aero, a supplier based in Seville, Spain. Airbus engineers identified defects across a broader set of panels, prompting inspections of 628 potentially affected aircraft. Company officials emphasized that the issue is contained and limited to a small number of panels, with all newly produced ones now meeting specifications. Only a portion of the inspected planes will require further corrective action, and the number of aircraft under review is decreasing daily as checks progress. Around 40 of the impacted jets remain in assembly lines.

This quality setback follows closely on an emergency software recall announced last week, which grounded about 6,000 A320...