Airbus: Lack of engines and toilets prevents dozens of nearly completed aircraft from being delivered

"It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but right now the biggest bottleneck we're experiencing on wide-body aircraft, especially the A350s, is the lavatories," Scherer said during a press conference Tuesday in Toulouse, ahead of the Paris Air Show, which runs from June 16 to 22.

He did not mention Safran, which manufactures A350 lavatory equipment, but criticized CFM, a joint venture between Safran and the American group GE, which supplies engines for single-aisle aircraft. Airbus regularly accuses it of favoring airlines over aircraft manufacturers. According to Christian Scherer, around 40 aircraft are currently ready, but cannot be delivered because the engines were not supplied on time.

The CEO emphasized, however, that these setbacks did not call into question the target of delivering 820 aircraft this year, even if the results from the beginning of the year were sluggish, calling for not "extrapolating" the monthly figures. Without these engine complications, "our delivery performance would have been slightly above forecast, which indicates that the overall health of this ecosystem has improved considerably," he assured.