Europe’s largest aerospace group saw net income rise by 21 percent in 2013 to €3.6 billion, while revenues rose five percent to €59.3 billion.
The past year witnessed the group delivering a record 626 planes, with Airbus expecting to deliver a similar number this year. Included in this will be an increasing number of its A320 jets, with production to expand to 46 planes a month from 42 by 2016.
"Based on the healthy market outlook for our best-selling A320 family and following a comprehensive assessment of our supply chain's readiness to ramp-up, we are ready to go to rate 46 by Q2 2016," said Tom Williams of Airbus. "With a record backlog of over 4,200 A320 family aircraft we have a solid case to increase our monthly output to satisfy our customers' requirement for more of our fuel efficient aircraft."
Airbus predicts that commercial aircraft orders will remain above delivery levels, and said it expects group revenues to remain stable.
Last month, Airbus's main rival Boeing said that it expected to deliver 715-725 aircraft this year, which would be an increase of at least ten percent from 2013.
