by Douglas Royce, Senior Aerospace Analyst, Forecast International.
The Airbus A320 family of narrowbody airliners is now the only application for the APS 3200 auxiliary power unit. Pratt & Whitney Canada’s APU shares the A320 market with Honeywell‘s Model 131-9A. Both APU makers are benefiting from the A320 family’s ongoing production increases.
The firm order backlog for Airbus’ A320 family of narrowbody airliners totaled 6,056 aircraft at the end of 2018, down only slightly from the 6,141 aircraft in the backlog at the end of the prior year. The total included orders for 5,891 NEO family aircraft.
Airbus is increasing production of the A320 family to 60 aircraft per month in 2019. It is targeting another rate increase in 2021 to 63 aircraft per month. However, Forecast International is not yet forecasting production at this higher rate.
In 2021 and 2022, Forecast International expects the civil aerospace market to undergo a cyclical slowdown. We believe Boeing and Airbus will be able to maintain their production rates by working with customers to shuffle delivery slots as they did during the last recession, although they are unlikely to implement new rate increases during a slowdown. Production is forecast to increase in mid-2023 to 63 aircraft a month. The rate could move even higher in the latter half of the forecast period of 2019-2028. Naturally, production of the APS 3000 will follow this trend in lockstep.
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