Military plane woes pinch Airbus
Bottom-line net profit plunged 63% to €995m last year, shot down by a €2.2b hit on A400M
European planemaker Airbus said yesterday that its profits nosedived last year as charges related to problems with its A400M military cargo transport plane sent earnings into a tailspin.
Airbus said in a statement that its bottom-line net profit plummeted by 63 per cent to €995 million ($1.0 billion) last year, shot down by a €2.2-billion hit on the A400M.
Revenues grew by three per cent to €66.6 billion.
“We have delivered on the commitments that we gave a year ago and achieved our guidance and objectives, with one exception, the A400M, where we had to take another significant charge totalling €2.2 billion in 2016,” said chief executive Tom Enders. “De-risking the programme and strengthening programme execution are our top priorities for this aircraft in 2017.”
The A400M was commissioned jointly in 2003 by the governments of Germany, Belgium, France, Britain, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey.
Originally planned for launch in 2011, its delivery was substantially delayed by a string of technical problems and different requests from the governments.
And new faults were in the propeller last year.
Airbus delivered 17 A400Ms in 2016, compared with 11 in 2015 and has delivered two of the military transport planes so far this year.
“Cash retentions by customers will continue to weigh significantly in 2017 and 2018 in particular,” Airbus warned.
The total value of the group’s order book stood at €1.06 trillion at the end of December, up from €1 trillion a year earlier. discovered engines