Airbus exec says latest order wins strengthen case for jet output hike

Recent order wins by Airbus have strengthened the European planemaker's case for raising production of its A320-family narrowbody jets beyond a firm target of 65 a month, a senior executive said on Thursday. Asked whether deals with Qantas and Air France-KLM had reinforced Airbus' ambitions to go ahead with further increases, opposed by some suppliers and leasing firms, CCO Christian Scherer said "yes." "What we are seeing materialise in formal decisions is something that we could see coming for months now," Scherer said. "It now publicly strengthens what we kind of knew all along," he said, adding he did not want to seem over-confident. Airbus has been arguing for months that post-pandemic demand for the industry's most widely used narrowbody models will justify an increase in output to well above pre-crisis rates. Story has more.<br/>