Airbus sees indications of gradual Chinese traffic recovery

Airbus believes there are initial signs of air transport recovery from the coronavirus outbreak in China, from where the first contagion wave spread. Its Tianjin facility had briefly shut production when the outbreak emerged, but has since resumed manufacturing, although Chinese airline operations remain significantly affected. CE Guillaume Faury said Monday that the airframer had started to see “some first signs of slow recovery” in domestic air travel. Chinese customers were not able to take delivery of aircraft at the peak of the crisis, he says, but there are “some indications” that deliveries will resume once operationally possible – perhaps “quite soon”, in the next month or so. Faury says the Chinese situation has given him confidence that Airbus will see a return to “high numbers of deliveries” in China later in the year. <br/>