France, April 29 Planemaking giant Airbus SE said it consumed 8 billion euros ($8.7 billion) in cash in the first quarter as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Guillaume Faury warned of the gravest crisis the aerospace industry has ever known.
Some 3.6 billion euros of the cash hit came from a payment to settle a bribery case, eating up reserves while Airbus grapples with the coronavirus crisis, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
Faury warned employees in a letter Friday that Airbus must quickly adapt to a shrinking aerospace sector as the pandemic undermines demand for new aircraft and threatens existing orders as airlines run short of money. A plan to slash output by one-third announced earlier this month may not reflect the worst-case scenario, he said.
