Airbus SE expects aircraft engines to remain in tight supply this year — signaling that the bottlenecks complicating output in recent years show no signs of easing soon. Outgoing Airbus commercial aircraft CEO Christian Scherer noted at a January 12 media call that the timing of engine deliveries on the bestselling A320 narrowbody continues to be an issue. The company is still in discussions with Pratt & Whitney, one of the two engine suppliers for the A320, regarding future volumes.
Engine shortages became an acute problem for Airbus last year, forcing the planemaker to build so-called "gliders" — planes without engines — in order to keep production lines moving. While supplies caught up by year's end, the discovery of faulty fuselage panels on the A320 family then prompted Airbus to lower its delivery target in the final weeks of December. Scherer, a company veteran of more than four decades at the European planemaker, handed over the reins on January 1 to Lars Wagner, the former CEO of MTU Aero Engines AG.
Airbus ramped up deliveries in December to 136 units, allowing annual deliveries to come in at 793 — just above its goal of 790. The company also recorded 889 net orders last year, taking its backlog to 8,754 aircraft. The planemaker signed deals for more than 140 A320 narrowbody jets from Chinese airlines and a lessor in the final week of December. Airbus delivered 607 A320 family jets last year — the highest figure since 2019.
From a supply chain perspective, the persistent engine bottleneck in the aviation sector is profoundly affecting airline fleet planning, the leasing market and MRO operations. The infrastructure capacity of Pratt & Whitney and CFM International remains tied to lead times for critical inputs such as titanium and nickel alloys. For airlines, this creates a need to extend the service life of older aircraft, absorb higher leasing costs and remodel operational efficiency assumptions.
