EADS CEO Louis Gallois is urging the company’s Airbus division to continue hardening its prices after seeing revenues suffer last year due to deals cut in the past.
Announcing a weak set of corporate results yesterday, EADS attributed Airbus’ largely flat performance in part to “a price deterioration in aircraft delivered”.
Answering questions at a briefing following the release of the results, Gallois warned that 2008 would see a worsening impact as aircraft were delivered on the back of orders placed in 2002-2005.
He said: “In 2008 we will have the effect of prices of aircraft in the past years – 2003, 2004, 2005 – and it will be a burden in 2008 because the pricing is less good than 2007 for the deliveries.”
He adds however that sales completed in 2007 were priced more strongly and he wants that trend to continue.
Gallois says: “For the orders in 2007 I could say we saw an improvement in the pricing. We think that we have to encourage that and to support this momentum for an increase in the pricing because we were going too low in the past in the competition with Boeing.
“I don’t say Airbus was too low, but the competition was extremely aggressive and the pricing in the market was not reflecting a sound business. 2007 was clearly effecting a recovery.”
Source: FlightGlobal.com
