Airbus has missed a number of delivery deadlines, forcing airline customers to find alternatives, change routes or cancel flights. It has delivered fewer planes than it did by this time last year, despite promising 80 more this year.

The missed deliveries mean delayed payments because most cash changes hands only upon delivery. That has hit Airbus’s closely followed cash flow over the year.

Boeing hasn’t missed any deliveries and said it won’t. But it is straining with the same supplier shortfalls as Airbus, particularly when it comes to engines.

“It is on all of our radars every day,” Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said Sunday at the Farnborough Air Show, the industry’s biggest trade show of the year. The company has made investments to help manage its suppliers, he said, including in technology to help monitor their performance.

Read full article