Airbus forced to cut 2025 delivery target over fuselage panel flaw

Airbus has been forced to cut its commercial delivery targets for 2025 over a fuselage panel flaw that requires inspections on hundreds of jets.

In a major blow to Airbus on December 3, 2025, the company downgraded its target of around 825 deliveries this year to 790, citing a “recent supplier quality issue on fuselage panels impacting its A320 Family delivery flow”.

According to Reuters, the fuselage panel flaw involves affected parts having the wrong thickness following manufacturing processes carried out by Sofitec Aero.

The media outlet also reported on December 3, 2025, that the defect had been discovered on more panels than previously thought.

Reuters also said that a presentation shown to airlines stated that 628 aircraft needed to be inspected, including 168 already in service. Over 240 are in assembly lines, according to the news website.

ShutterstockAdditionally, the Air Current reported that any repairs could take three to five weeks.

In a statement passed to Reuters, Airbus said: “We confirm the population of aircraft potentially impacted is both in production and in service.”

The quality issue affecting fuselage panels came to light earlier this week following a torrid week for Airbus. On November 28, 2025, airlines were also ordered to apply precautionary software updates to the type’s elevator aileron computers after Airbus and EASA flagged a vulnerability that required immediate attention.

Despite the revision to delivery figures, Airbus said that it would maintain its financial guidance as provided at the nine-month 2025 results.

“The Company still targets an EBIT Adjusted of around € 7.0 billion and Free Cash Flow before Customer Financing of around € 4.5 billion,” a spokesperson for Airbus said.

Even without the fuselage panel issue, it was looking increasingly unlikely that Airbus would hit its target of around 820 commercial aircraft deliveries this year.

Although Airbus is yet to confirm its final deliveries and orders for November 2025, it’s believed around 72 aircraft were received by its customers.

This would bring the total number of deliveries to 657, requiring more than 160 aircraft to be delivered in December 2025. The current December record stands at 138 aircraft, set in 2019.

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