Airbus is closely monitoring the evolution of European fiscal crisis and potential vector of global recession, but believes that in this case, Asia, particularly China, represent an island of growth, said Thursday the Chief Operating Officer of Airbus.
“At the end of August, we recorded 1,000 net orders (in Europe) and air traffic is alive and well,” said Fabrice Brégier during an interview on the sidelines of World Economic Forum in Dalian, China.
“However, we expect some adjustments to come. We were in a very different situation from 2008 to 2009. This time, we see a difficulty in some over-indebted European states, but the real economy is healthy.”
The European budget crisis has revived fears of a relapse of the economy into recession. Such a scenario would cause a slowdown in air traffic and thus the growth of airlines.
“A major recession would cause a decline in traffic and therefore the companies would not generate enough cash to buy new planes,” said Fabrice Brégier.
However, he stressed that EADS subsidiary is in a better position than during the crisis of the 1990s or that of 2008/2009.
“Now we’re on the world market, so we no longer sell exclusively to Europe and the United States and most of our orders come from Asia, especially China,” he said.
The first super jumbo Airbus will be delivered to the carrier China Southern Airlines in the coming weeks and the unit will be operational in November.
In early September, Boeing announced that China would need 5,000 commercial aircraft in the next 20 years, for a total of $ 600 billion, representing an increase of 25% over the previous estimate of U.S. manufacturer.
Airbus, which currently holds a market share of 45% in China, to publish its world forecast on Sept. 20. According to Fabrice Brégier, the market share of Airbus in China will exceed 50% in the coming years.
“We plan to deliver about 90 aircraft to China next year and about 100 this year,” said the chief operating officer.
In June, the Industrial Commercial Bank of China and China Aviation Supplies ordered 88 Airbus A320s for 7.5 billion dollars (5.4 billion euros), with delivery expected between 2012 and 2015.