Airbus tells U.S. airlines they’ll need to pay their own tariffs

Airbus reiterated that it still aims to deliver about 820 commercial aircraft this year, though the target doesn’t include the fallout from tariffs and assumes 'no additional disruptions to global trade or the world economy.' Photo by PASCAL PAVANI/AFP via Getty Images/Postmedia files

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The European planemaker is responsible for any added duties on supplies it imports to its own aircraft assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama, and then sells on to customers, Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said on a conference call after reporting first-quarter results.

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“However, when we are exporting from Europe to United States, that’s an import for the customers,” Faury said. “They’re also not very much willing to pay tariffs, but it’s on them.”

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The comments show how the aviation industry is scrambling to adjust to new fees filtering through an aerospace supply chain that’s been shielded from tariffs for decades. Faury said Airbus is working to mitigate the surcharges, though the process has strained a fragile system that already relies on the free flow of thousands of components across borders.

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“I can tell you that the Airbus perspective is that they are not good for us and for the European industry, but they are not good as well for the U.S. industry,” Faury said of the tariffs, advocating for a return to a duty-free status.

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Airlines including Delta Air Lines and American Airlines Group have said they’re not willing to pay the extra cost for planes. However, there are workarounds in some cases — Delta, for example, is routing a new Airbus A350-900 built in Toulouse, France, through Tokyo, Bloomberg reported this week, echoing a similar strategy the airline took in 2019 when a trade dispute led to short-lived US tariffs.

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“We’re looking at opportunities to export to somewhere else than the U.S., especially for airlines who have international operations,” Faury said. “We are finding arrangements with several customers, with their network, their partners on how to deal with the situation.”

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With its first-quarter results, Airbus cautioned that tariffs have injected further uncertainty into an aviation industry supply chain that still hasn’t fully recovered from Covid-19.

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The company reiterated that it still aims to deliver about 820 commercial aircraft this year, though the target doesn’t include the fallout from tariffs and assumes “no additional disruptions to global trade or the world economy,” according to a statement Wednesday. Deliveries this year will be backloaded, “reflecting the specific supply chain challenges we are facing,” Airbus said.