Airbus Not Crashing After Flying High in 2011

Reports have been flying around (if you will excuse the inexcusable pun) that aerospace group EADS, which owns the Airbus unit, is in the midst of some serious financing concerns.

had a record 2011, resulting in shares rising 25 percent thanks to growing demand from Asia and the Middle East for jetliners. That number gives the company some breathing space for a good while from the debt crisis. Still, it has not taken long for the vultures to start circling as the new year gets underway. Sales chief John Leahy is unperturbed. “It was a tough year for the world economy but traffic is growing and the number of middle classes, by which I mean people with disposable incomes for things like air travel, will triple in the next 20 years,” he was quoted as saying on

. Leahy scoffed at claims that there is a shortage of financing for aircraft deliveries as banks in Europe scale back their lending, and it does seem ludicrous that a company can be viewed as being in trouble just two weeks into 2012 following a stellar FY2011. To give some context, Airbus outsold

almost two-to-one last year thanks to a fuel-efficient jetliner, and it delivered more jets than Boeing for the ninth year running. It does admit that it may struggle to retain the order crown this year, but it still seems to be a long way from genuine worry. Airbus won orders for 1,608 aircraft, though that is a net total of 1,419 after cancellations. That gives the company a 64 percent share of the market by volume or approximately 55 percent by value. Hardly cause to bite the fingernails to the bone, huh? Between both Airbus and Boeing, they delivered more than 1000 aircraft and took orders for 2,500, a record for a single year. While Boeing is expected to rebound harder and with a bang in FY2012, one would be crazy to count Airbus out after such a great year. Financing might be a little harder to come by this year, but that is surely a temporary problem. In fact, less a problem and more a glitch. Expect to see good, if not record-breaking, numbers for EADS this time next year.