Airbus to increase production

Europe's largest aerospace group, Airbus, has recorded a rise in full-year profits and company sources said it will increase output of its A320 jets.

Net income rose 21% to 3.6 billion euros ($5 billion; £3 billion) in 2013, a year when Airbus delivered a record 626 planes. Revenue rose 5% to 59.3 billion euros.

Airbus sources said they expected to deliver a similar number of planes this year. It would increase production of its A320 jets 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 customer requirement for more of our fuel efficient aircraft,” he said. Airbus is due deliver its first A350 jet to Qatar Airways before the end of the year.

Company sources said that commercial aircraft orders would remain above delivery levels, and expected group revenues to remain stable.

Last month, sources at Airbus's main rival Boeing said that they expected to deliver 715-725 aircraft this year, which would be an increase of at least 10% from 2013.

But at the same time, the US aerospace giant warned that future revenue and profits would be lower than what analysts had forecast.

-BBC