Airbus Halts Operations in France and Spain

Airbus (PA:AIR) said it will suspend operations at its production facilities in France and Spain for four days to protect its staff in the manufacturing sector from coronavirus.

Yesterday, Reuters reported that the planemaker had prepared contingency plans to slow or halt production in case France was placed under a total lockdown due to the epidemic.

This is the largest across-the-board interruption in Airbus production since its ex-partner BAE Systems went on strike in 1989 and sent Airbus’ shares down 7%.

President of France Emmanuel Macron ordered rigorous restrictions yesterday on citizens’ movements to slow down the spread of the pandemic.

Shares of Airbus fell 7.1% mid-morning, while France's CAC40 (FCHI) blue-chip index lost 1%.

Airbus’ headquarters are in Toulouse, France, as well as the planemaker’s biggest assembly plants. It is expected the company's suppliers will suffer a hard blow as well.

The plant in Toulouse manufactures the narrow-body A320 series there as well as every wide-body plane including the A330 and A350. The last units of the A380 are also being assembled in Toulouse.

French plants also manufacture the cockpit section, central wingbox for all Airbus aircrafts and the pylons, a structure holds the engines and connects it to the wings. The plants in Spain produce the tail section for Airbus aircrafts as well as A400M military transporters.

Airbus’ other production lines include A319, A321 and more A320s in Hamburg, Germany, and production facilities that assemble A320 and A321 planes in Mobile, Alabama, and Tianjin, China.

Airbus will continue its operations over the next few days at plants in the UK, where the wings are assembled, and Germany, where it produces part of its fuselages and has its second-largest group of production lines.

According to industry sources, deliveries have already been halted as airlines restrain from taking over an aircraft in order to save money. Boeing announced yesterday it was using all its resources to continue its operations.