With air travel paralyzed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the aviation industry is gripped by the worst crisis in its history. Daher is working alongside its customers and suppliers to adapt as quickly as possible to this new environment by prioritizing the health of its employees and ensuring the continuity and future of its business.
Around the world, aircraft are grounded. Airlines are struggling financially, and their ability – or desire – to renew their fleets is questionnable in the short or even medium term. The sudden slowdown has been brutal for every sector of the aviation industry. The production rate reductions announced by major aircraft and engine manufacturer customers will have – and already are having – a significant impact on subcontractors across the aviation industry’s supply chain. As a result, Daher’s annual revenue for 2020 is now expected to be 30% lower than we initially forecast before the pandemic.
As soon as the coronavirus crisis hit, we implemented a set of unprecedented measures to ensure the safe and responsible continuity of operations for our customers. Thanks to our crisis response system – which we activated midway through February – it took us only a few days to rethink and adapt the organizational structure of our production facilities and logistics hubs in great detail. After only a few days of interruption, all our strategic facilities returned to operation to meet the needs of our customers, at the same time as ensuring perfectly safe working conditions for our employees. Since the end of March, we have been adjusting production on a daily basis to meet our contractual commitments.
Despite a few unavoidable delays and supply chain disruptions, the constant commitment of our teams has allowed us to continue delivering the components ordered by our customers and providing logistics services for final assembly lines, cabin installations, outstanding work, etc., while at the same time adapting to customers’ lower production rates and the extremely disrupted environment of the industry as a whole. With the adaptability and constant commitment of our teams, we have been able to provide uninterrupted through-life support for many civil and military aircraft assigned to emergency medical operations.
With a current level of activity at approximately 30% of the pre-COVID-19 levels, Daher is now well placed to step up and support its customers as they gradually return to work.
For almost 160 years, Daher has successfully weathered the severe crises of the 20th century, and has repeatedly demonstrated its resilience. With the unwavering support of its family shareholding structure (the Daher family still owns 87.5% of equity capital) and BPI (which owns the remaining 12.5%), Daher is an extremely stable group of companies with the ability to look confidently to the future – even in the most turbulent of times – by relying on its intrinsic qualities and values:
- The adaptability needed to get through this crisis and recover strongly as soon as the situation allows;
- The innovation required to support the necessary transformation of the aviation industry and assert Daher as a leader in what will be a more eco-respectful business environment; and
- The balanced business model that combines manufacturing with services by drawing on more than a century of aircraft industry expertise.
The aerostructures market was under significant pressure even before the crisis, but that is likely to intensify further in the coming months, and the drastic reduction in production rates is significantly affecting our services businesses. But Daher has a strong cash position, and has put in place far-reaching measures to resist the crisis and ensure its long-term future, including adapting its labor force to align with the needs of the business (through part-time working arrangements), developing a facilities reorganization plan, postponing internal development plans and drastically reducing capital expenditure (CAPEX).
With its triple expertise as an aircraft manufacturer, equipment manufacturer and logistics specialist, Daher is now playing a central role in ongoing discussions about the resources that will need to be implemented in France and internationally to ensure the recovery of the aviation industry.
Be reassured that we are absolutely determined to do everything in our power to ensure that – together with our customers, suppliers and partners – we can successfully reinvent ourselves to weather the crisis and secure our shared future.
Our teams are ready and waiting to speak with you, so contact us!
VP Sales, Daher