Without immediate action to alleviate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Airbus fears its survival is at stake. The European manufacturer warned its workforce that larger job cuts are to be expected.
In a letter sent on April 24, 2020, to its 135,000 employees, Chief Executive Guillaume Faury wrote that Airbus was “losing money at an unprecedented speed.” On April 8, 2020, the manufacturer decided to reduce its production output by more than a third due to customers deferring the delivery of their aircraft. That reduction does not reflect the worst-case scenario for the company and it could be reassessed upwards as demand will be evaluated in the next two to three months.
Airbus started implementing partial unemployment measures with the assistance of the French government. Those should concern 3,000 people of about 48,000 it employs in France. “But we may have to plan for additional measures,” warned Faury.
The manufacturer gradually reopened its facilities in Europe. Production in Airbus’ plant of Mobile, in Alabama, is expected to resume around April 29, 2020, after twenty days of suspension. Work will be made “under strict social distancing and hygiene rules,” a spokesperson told Bama News. The new A220 Final Assembly Line, the construction of which was not interrupted, is set to open later in 2020.
The financial results of the manufacturer for the first quarter of 2020 are expected in the coming days.