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Airbus attributes 63% drop to foreign exchange rates

Net profits at Airbus fell last year by 63% to €995 million, as revenue edged up 3% to €67 billion.

The European aircraft manufacturer citied negative foreign exchange effects as “significantly impacting” the results.

Commercial aircraft orders declined from 1,080 in 2015 to 731 while the backlog reached a record 6,874 at the end of 2016.

Deliveries of commercial aircraft increased from 635 to a record 688 as revenues for the division rose by 7%.

Commercial aircraft earnings [EBIT] increased to €2.8 billion from €2.7 billion the previous year, helped by higher volumes of short haul A320s and a 21% decline in research and development costs

Chief executive, Tom Enders, said: “We have delivered on the commitments that we gave a year ago and achieved our guidance and objectives, with one exception, the A400M [military aircraft], where we had to take another significant charge totalling €2.2 billion in 2016.

“De-risking the programme and strengthening programme execution are our top priorities for this aircraft in 2017.”

He added: “The record order backlog is supporting the ramp-up plans and our performance in 2016 shows we can deliver on that.

“We successfully managed the ramp-up of the single-aisle and A350 programmes while at the same time transitioning to the more efficient version of the A320.”

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