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Airbus has reaffirmed its goal of producing 12 A350 aircraft per month by 2028, yet a new round of delivery delays has exposed a problem that could make the target considerably harder to achieve. The manufacturer has told some customers to expect additional A350 delays later this decade, with industry sources pointing to ongoing difficulties at a recently acquired facility in Kinston, North Carolina. The plant supplies major composite structures for the A350, meaning production problems there can affect aircraft several stages downstream.
The setback is especially significant because Airbus is attempting to almost double A350 output from current levels while demand remains strong. The company delivered 26 A350s in the first half of 2026, averaging fewer than five per month, although monthly deliveries do not necessarily reflect factory production rates. Airbus nevertheless says it remains committed to reaching 12 per month in 2028. The question is no longer whether demand exists, but whether Airbus can resolve enough industrial bottlenecks quickly enough to make that production rate sustainable.
Kinston Has Become The Critical Bottleneck
The most immediate concern centers on Airbus Aerosystems Kinston, the North Carolina facility that Airbus took over from Spirit AeroSystems in December 2025 (not associated with the former airline). The 500,000-square-foot (46,451 square meters) site now employs about 1,000 people and serves as a Center of Excellence for advanced composite manufacturing. Its work includes A350 fuselage panels and wing spar structures, which are shipped onward for integration into aircraft in France. The facility’s output has to arrive in the correct condition and sequence before an A350 can progress through final assembly. A shortage or interruption at this point can leave other production stages waiting for parts, even if Airbus has sufficient capacity elsewhere. That creates a particularly difficult problem during a production ramp because increasing final assembly rates does not help if upstream structures cannot be delivered at the required cadence.
In May, Airbus had informed some customers of further delivery delays later in the decade, attributing the problems primarily to difficulties securing critical fuselage components from Kinston. Staffing issues during the transition were also identified, with some former Spirit employees choosing to return to operations associated with 
Boeing after Spirit’s commercial aircraft business was divided between the two manufacturers. The transition has been anything but smooth.
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Airbus has presented a more measured assessment of recent events. When the company began operating the site, it emphasized that the facility was central to its industrial ramp-up and described its new workforce as approximately 1,000 employees. In April 2026, Airbus executives also discussed the logistical complexity of sending European specialists to support the operation. The company has not publicly confirmed individual customer delivery dates and generally does not comment on contractual timelines. That difference in framing matters because the production challenge is not simply about adding workers. Airbus has had to absorb a facility, integrate its processes into a different corporate structure, establish new management relationships, and maintain production while doing so. Those tasks are consuming time precisely when the A350 program needs more capacity.
The 12-Per-Month Goal Requires A Steep Ramp
Airbus raised its A350 production target to 12 aircraft per month in 2024, responding to strong demand for long-haul aircraft. At the time, the company described the increase as part of a broader response to a robust widebody market. The target effectively requires Airbus to move from today’s constrained production environment toward a substantially higher and more consistent output level within a relatively short period. The company has not abandoned that objective. At its 2026 annual results presentation, Airbus said it still targets 12 A350s per month in 2028. Chief Executive Guillaume Faury acknowledged that the company was in a steep ramp-up toward that rate and said Airbus had strong demand for the aircraft. He also said the company was studying what it would take to increase production even further, although those additional ambitions were not immediate.
The difficulty is the amount of industrial coordination required to make that increase real. A widebody aircraft depends on thousands of components arriving from a global network of suppliers and Airbus-owned facilities. Increasing output therefore requires more than additional final-assembly positions. Suppliers must increase their own rates, logistics networks must absorb greater volumes, tooling must support higher utilization, and quality systems must remain stable while production accelerates. Even a relatively modest delay on individual aircraft can become consequential when an assembly system is already operating close to its practical limits, because recovering one late aircraft can require additional resources without eliminating the underlying bottleneck.
The timing leaves Airbus with little room for prolonged disruption. Reaching 12 aircraft per month in 2028 requires the industrial system to become progressively more reliable before the target date. If Kinston continues to constrain fuselage structures during the ramp, Airbus may have to spend part of the remaining period resolving today’s problems rather than preparing for tomorrow’s higher rate.
The A350F Adds Another Layer Of Pressure
The passenger A350 is not the only version affected by the wider industrial environment. Airbus is also developing the Airbus A350F freighter, which uses the same basic aircraft family but introduces additional production requirements. The freighter has already faced delays, giving Airbus another program milestone to manage alongside the passenger variants. Airbus-manufactured cargo doors in Spain were experiencing disruptions. The issue was significant because the A350F requires specialized cargo doors for its freighter configuration. Airbus nevertheless said in May that the freighter’s first flight, expected later in 2026, and first delivery, planned for 2027, remained on track.
The A350F therefore shows why Airbus’ 12-aircraft target should be viewed as a family-wide industrial objective rather than simply a passenger-aircraft number. Airbus has said the 12-per-month rate includes A350 passenger aircraft and freighters. Any freighter production in that total will require capacity that might otherwise support passenger variants, although the exact production mix can change with customer demand. Airbus also has a strategic reason to protect the freighter timeline. The market for new-generation cargo aircraft remains constrained, while older freighter fleets are aging. The A350F is intended to compete in that environment with a large, efficient aircraft based on a platform already established in passenger service. A prolonged development or production delay could therefore affect Airbus’ ability to capitalize on a segment where it has been seeking a stronger position.
For the wider A350 program, the freighter creates another demand on engineering, certification, supplier coordination, and final assembly resources. Airbus can manage those requirements if the industrial network is stable. It becomes more difficult when a major upstream facility is simultaneously undergoing integration and production recovery.
Spirit’s Legacy Is Still Being Felt
The Kinston problem also illustrates a broader industrial dilemma created by Spirit AeroSystems’ breakup. For years, Airbus and Boeing relied heavily on Spirit for major aerostructures while allowing the supplier to operate as an independent company. When Boeing moved to reacquire most of Spirit’s operations, Airbus chose a different solution for the work dedicated to its aircraft. It took ownership of selected facilities and production packages, including Kinston.
The transaction’s financial structure shows how unusual the arrangement was. Under the definitive agreement announced in April 2025, Airbus was due to receive $439 million from Spirit, subject to adjustments, while taking ownership of selected industrial assets. Airbus said the transaction was designed to stabilize supply and create a more sustainable operational and financial structure for critical work packages. The acquisition solved one problem while creating another. Airbus gained direct control over work that had previously depended on an external supplier, which should, in theory, give it greater authority over production planning and investment. However, ownership also meant inheriting the site’s workforce, equipment, processes, facilities, and operational history.
Airbus’ own financial reporting also indicates the cost of the transition. The company recorded a €188 million ($208 million) adjustment related to acquiring and integrating certain Spirit AeroSystems work packages in its 2025 results. That figure does not represent the total cost of resolving every production issue, but it demonstrates that the integration already carries a material financial burden.
The comparison with Boeing is consequently more than rhetorical. Both manufacturers are confronting the consequences of a supply model in which critical aerostructures were placed outside the original equipment manufacturer’s direct control. Bringing those operations back in-house restores authority, but it also shifts responsibility for problems that accumulated during years of independent operation.
Delivery Delays Could Outlast The Original Problem
The biggest risk to Airbus is not necessarily a permanent reduction in A350 production, but the possibility that temporary disruptions consume the time Airbus needs to build a stable production system. The difference matters because a delayed component today can affect an individual aircraft, while an unstable supply chain can influence delivery planning across multiple years. The reported delays already reach into the later part of the decade. Customers were warned about additional delays averaging about one month for some A350 deliveries.
Airlines are particularly sensitive to this type of uncertainty because widebody fleet plans involve long-term network decisions. A delayed A350 can affect replacing an older aircraft, launching a new route, retiring another type, or timing crew and maintenance investments. If several aircraft are delayed at the same time, an airline may have to extend leases or keep older aircraft longer than planned. The production system must also absorb variability without compromising quality. Airbus cannot simply accelerate every station to compensate for missing components because aircraft manufacturing depends on carefully controlled sequences. A higher nominal rate that creates more rework, incomplete aircraft, or quality disruptions would not represent a successful ramp. The objective is a repeatable rate that can be sustained month after month.
Target Is Still Possible, But The Margin Is Shrinking
Airbus has not withdrawn its 2028 A350 production target, and current evidence does not establish that 12 aircraft per month is impossible. The company delivered 26 A350s in the first half of 2026, continues to report strong demand, and maintains the stated 2028 objective. The more defensible conclusion is that the target has become significantly harder to execute because the industrial system supporting it is proving less stable than Airbus needs.
Kinston is central to that challenge because it supplies structural components that cannot simply be replaced by increasing final assembly capacity in Toulouse. Airbus must rebuild staffing depth, stabilize production processes, integrate the facility into its global network, and resolve the broader supply constraints affecting the A350 family. At the same time, the company must prepare the A350F for entry into service while maintaining passenger-aircraft deliveries.
The test, then, is whether Airbus can turn Kinston from a transition project into a dependable high-rate supplier before the 2028 deadline. If it succeeds, the current delays may ultimately become an expensive but temporary consequence of vertical integration. If recovery takes longer, Airbus could reach 2028 with a nominal target that is technically achievable but difficult to sustain in practice. The A350 has become one of Airbus’ most important widebody programs, and its backlog gives the company a substantial commercial opportunity. Converting that backlog into aircraft requires an industrial system that can match demand. Until Kinston and the wider supply chain demonstrate that consistency, 12 A350s per month remains a target Airbus can defend, but not one it can take for granted.
