Airbus Confronts a Delivery Sprint and a Spanish Labour Truce as the A350F Prepares for Take-Off
Published on 09/10/2026 at 06:21 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Airbus has spent the summer juggling three moving parts at once: a strike that refuses to fully die in Spain, a freighter programme finally nearing its first flight, and a delivery target that will demand a punishing final push. Fresh figures and a narrow union vote have now sharpened the picture on all three fronts.
A 67-Vote Margin Keeps the Spanish Standoff Alive
The strike committee at Airbus's Spanish sites opted on Wednesday to suspend its indefinite walkout — even though a majority of the workforce had just voted to keep it going. The ballot could hardly have been tighter: 51.23% backed continuing the stoppage against 48.7% in favour of a pause, a gap of just 67 votes.
Unions UGT, CGT and ÚTIL chose to halt the industrial action from Wednesday anyway, pointing to the razor-thin result and the fact that four of the six affected plants had come out in favour of a suspension. Their decision follows a deal Airbus struck with UGT, ATP, CCOO and SIPA — roughly 88% of union representation — under the mediation of Spain's industry ministry a little over a week earlier. That agreement will now be put to a binding referendum of the Spanish workforce. For the planemaker, the pause buys short-term certainty on the production line, though the final vote remains an open question.
The Delivery Arithmetic Points to a Demanding Final Stretch
August brought 57 commercial aircraft deliveries, a pace that leaves Airbus increasingly squeezed against its full-year target of around 870 handovers. To hit that mark, the company would need to hand over close to 99 jets a month across the remaining four months of the year, according to media reports — a step up from what August produced.
Orders, by contrast, offered some relief. Airbus booked 67 aircraft in the same month, including eight A350F freighters for a customer that has not been named. That reinforces a healthy backlog but does nothing to ease the operational task of accelerating output in the closing months.
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Layered on top is a slowdown in A330neo deliveries after a forgotten tool was discovered in the rear fuselage of one aircraft in early September. Quality lapses of this kind are not a structural threat on their own, yet combined with strike risk and a tight calendar they add up to a cluster of operational disruptions worth watching. The next quarterly report, due on 28 October, should reveal whether Airbus can actually pull off the required sprint.
A350F Nears Its First Flight After a Long Wait
The freighter variant of Airbus's long-haul jet is set to take to the air before September is out, with the maiden flight pencilled in for the end of the month. The milestone has drawn close attention given earlier slippage on the programme. The A350F is intended to round out the group's cargo offering and give customers an alternative to older freighters, and it already has commercial traction: the eight orders booked in August went to an undisclosed buyer. Despite past postponements, the aircraft is edging closer to market readiness.
Operations Improve While the Share Price Lags
By the end of August, Airbus had delivered 475 aircraft, up 9% on the same period a year earlier, with 57 of those in August alone. The company remains on track for its annual goal after an isolated quality issue on the A330 horizontal stabiliser had held back deliveries over the summer. Airbus said the cause had been identified and that A330 handovers were back to normal.
On the Spanish front, conditions have eased after weeks of strikes at the country's Airbus plants, with management and unions reaching a provisional agreement now being put to employees for a binding vote. According to union sources, it provides for compensation of lost purchasing power and inflation-linked pay increases, alongside changes to working practices.
None of this has translated into share-price support. The stock closed Wednesday at EUR 195.44, down 2.3%, leaving it roughly 3% below its 50-day average of EUR 201.58 and nearly 12% under the 52-week high of EUR 221.25 reached in January. An RSI of just under 40 points to weak momentum without signalling oversold territory. Over the past 30 days the shares have shed 8.2%, trading recently at EUR 196.00 and sitting 2.8% beneath the 50-day line — a sign that the near-term trend stays fragile even as operations improve.
Simulator Plans Extend the Services Push
Beyond the aircraft themselves, Airbus is pressing ahead with its training business. At the Airbus Asia Training Centre in Singapore, a Full-Flight Simulator for the A220 is to be installed in partnership with the Flight Training Alliance, with entry into service planned for the fourth quarter of 2027. The move underscores how the group keeps expanding its service offering around existing aircraft families in parallel with new programmes. For investors, the A350F's first flight remains the next concrete date that will show whether Airbus can finally leave the freighter programme's delays behind — and, if it goes ahead as announced, add another building block to restoring confidence after a summer marked by Spanish strikes and the A330 quality issue.
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