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Airbus delays China deliveries

European-based aircraft manufacturer Airbus announced that the company’s deliveries to 2-3 start-up Chinese airlines would be delayed in 2009-2010 due to the looming global financial crisis.

However, Airbus strongly asserts that the company deliveries to China will be on schedule for 2008.

Still, the global financial crisis will affect not just Airbus, but the aviation industry as a whole, especially start-up airlines.  Laurence Barron, President of Airbus China, commented, “It’s more the start-ups that are obviously going to be most affected by the reduction in the amount of available financing, so we will encourage them to defer.”

Last week, Airbus sales chief John Leahy told the press that the company will be seeing lower aircraft orders next year. Leahy supported his statement with statistics: at 3705, this is Airbus’ largest backlog in history.