Airbus Posts 52% Profit Drop as Delivery Disconnect Deepens, But Defence and Orders Offer Counterweight

Airbus reports 52% profit plunge amid production delays, but orders jump 42% and defence revenue rises 69%, highlighting a stark divide between demand and delivery.

Airbus ended the first quarter of 2026 with a starkly divided scorecard: a near-halving of operating profit on one side, and a surge in new orders on the other. The disconnect between what customers want and what the planemaker can actually deliver has rarely been more pronounced.

The Toulouse-based group reported a 52 percent plunge in adjusted operating profit to €300 million, as revenues slipped 7 percent to €12.7 billion — though that top-line figure still managed to beat analyst expectations of €12.4 billion. Earnings per share landed at €0.74, well ahead of the consensus estimate of €0.44. The free cash flow picture was far uglier, with a negative €2.5 billion before customer financing.

The Production-Delivery Rift

CEO Guillaume Faury was blunt about the root cause, describing a “desynchronisation between production and delivery.” The numbers bear that out. Airbus handed over just 114 commercial aircraft to customers in the first three months, down from 136 in the same period last year. January was particularly weak at 19 deliveries, before the pace recovered to 60 in March.

Three factors are gumming up the works: quality issues with fuselage panels, an administrative logjam holding up around 20 aircraft destined for China, and — most critically — persistent engine problems at Pratt & Whitney. Faury identified the engine maker as “the decisive pacemaker for our A320 ramp-up curve, for this year and next.” CFO Thomas Toepfer confirmed the bottleneck had not eased since the group’s annual outlook was issued. Airbus has now approached CFM, manufacturer of the LEAP engine, to explore relief options.

The pain was concentrated in the commercial aircraft division, where adjusted EBIT collapsed to €81 million from €494 million a year earlier.

Defence Provides a Bright Spot

While the civil business struggled, Airbus Defence and Space delivered a standout performance. Revenues in the division rose to €2.8 billion, while adjusted operating profit jumped 69 percent to €130 million. Order intake nearly doubled to €5.0 billion, driven largely by the Air Power segment. The division also delivered two A400M military transporters during the quarter.

That defence strength helped cushion the blow from the civil side and contributed to the stock’s modest gain of around 1 percent on the day of the results.

Orders Keep Piling Up

The demand side tells a completely different story. Net commercial aircraft orders hit 398 units in the quarter, a 42 percent increase year-on-year. The total order backlog swelled to 9,037 aircraft — more than a decade of production at current rates. The group’s liquidity position remains robust at over €30 billion, and a hedging portfolio covering roughly $77 billion provides protection against a weak US dollar.

Among the bright spots in the product line-up is the A321XLR, the long-range narrowbody that entered service with Air Canada in March. Airbus has accumulated more than 500 orders for the model.

The Steep Climb Ahead

Management is sticking to its full-year targets: around 870 deliveries, adjusted EBIT of roughly €7.5 billion, and free cash flow of about €4.5 billion. The arithmetic is demanding. To hit the delivery goal, Airbus must average 84 aircraft per month over the remaining nine months — more than double the January pace.

The market’s verdict will hinge on whether the promised acceleration materialises in the second quarter, and whether Pratt & Whitney can resolve its engine constraints faster than currently anticipated. On a year-to-date basis, the shares remain down nearly 17 percent and trade about 13 percent below their 200-day moving average.