On Tuesday, a senior executive from Airbus SE stated, the airplane maker is confident of selling more than 1,000 A321XLR aircraft over the next 10 years.
The Airbus A321XLR aircraft has a longer range than the single-aisle A321neo.
Francois Caudron, Head of Marketing at Airbus said, the forecast includes a mix of new orders and conversions from other models.
In 2019 Airbus has already sold more than 450 jets to airliners, including Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd and Malaysia’s AirAsia Group Bhd.
Customers in Asia are being hit hard by the slowdown in air traffic due to China’s coronavirus; he did not comment if any customer had requested to defer deliveries.
“Coronavirus is a crisis,” he said. “I would just remind ourselves we are in a very resilient industry,” said Caudron while adding airlines were not panicking and were looking beyond the short term in terms of orders.
“When you order an aircraft it is not for the next six months. It is for the next 20 years” said Caudron.
Last week, Airbus extended a planned closure of its A320 family final assembly plant in Tianjin, China, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
