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Kathmandu : Airbus announced on Tuesday that it had delivered 661 commercial aircraft to customers in 2022.
“In 2022 we served 84 customers with 661 deliveries, an increase of 8 percent compared to 2021,” the group said.
The A320 Family was the most popular aircraft type, with 516 deliveries worldwide. However, the new flagship aircraft A350 only had 60 deliveries.
Guillaume Faury, Airbus’ chief executive officer, said the number of commercial aircraft delivered was “obviously” fewer than target.
However, Airbus registered 1,078 gross new orders in 2022, with a backlog of 7,239 aircraft at the end of December 2022.
“The significant order intake covering all our aircraft families, including freighters, reflects the strength and competitiveness of our product line,” Faury said.
In July 2022, Faury revised down the delivery goal from 720 to around 700 commercial aircraft, due to problems with the supply chain.
Japan protests China’s visa halt
(AFP) Tokyo on Wednesday criticised China’s move to stop issuing visas to Japanese citizens, saying it had protested the measure and demanded that Beijing reverse the decision.
China on Tuesday said it would suspend the issuing of visas for Japanese and South Korean citizens in response to measures imposed by Tokyo and Seoul on arrivals from the mainland, where Covid cases are surging.
China’s apparently retaliatory move was “extremely regrettable”, Japan’s top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said.
He pointed out that Japan’s measures, which require arrivals from mainland China and Macau to test before travel and on landing, do not prevent Chinese travellers from entering the country.
“We protested to China through diplomatic channels and demanded the removal of the measure,” he said.
Matsuno declined to detail how China responded to Japan’s protest or whether there would be further discussions with Beijing on the issue.
“Japan will take appropriate steps while monitoring the infection situation in China and the status of China’s information disclosure,” Matsuno sai.
