PARIS: Airbus flew back into profit in the first three months of the current year as cost-cutting and restructuring measures began to pay off, but it warned that the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic was not yet over.
The European aircraft manufacturer said in a statement that it booked bottom-line net profit of 362 million euros ($440 million) during the January to March period, compared with a loss of 481 million euros a year earlier.
First-quarter consolidated revenues were stable at 10.5 billion euros.
Chief executive Guillaume Faury hailed the rollout of vaccines against Covid-19 and pointed to "encouraging signs" of rising air traffic in the United States and China.
But "the first quarter shows that the crisis is not yet over for our industry, and that the market remains uncertain," Faury said, not least given a lack of coordination on European travel restrictions and the ongoing surge in virus deaths and cases in India.
"We still face uncertainties which result in a lack of predictability," Faury warned in a conference call, meaning "we consider that the path to recovery will not necessarily be linear."
Yet he said there were a number of positive developments.
Airbus said it had delivered a total of 125 commercial aircraft in the three-month period, up from 122 a year earlier, including nine A220s, 105 A320 family, one A330 and 10 A350s.
Looking ahead, the company said it was sticking to its previous forecasts for stable aircraft deliveries of 566 for 2021 as a whole - the same number as in 2020 - and underlying operating profit of two billion euros. The state of deliveries is a crucial indicator as clients only hand over the bulk of payments on actual receipt of jets.
Faury noted overcapacity remains an issue and that airline trade association Iata had forecast cost effectiveness would remain negative for 2021.
IATA expects cumulative airline losses to come in at $47.7 billion this year up from an earlier forecast of 38 billion.
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