Airbus announced that it expects production and assembly work to partially resume in France and Spain on Monday, 23 March following health and safety checks after the implementation of stringent measures.
In addition, the company is supporting efforts globally to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.
Airbus has carried out extensive work in coordination with its social partners to ensure the health and safety of its employees, while securing business continuity.
The implementation of these measures required a temporary pause in production and assembly activities at the French and Spanish sites for a period of four days.
Work stations will only re-open if they comply with the new health and safety measures in terms of hygiene, cleaning and self-distancing while improving the efficiency of operations under new working conditions.
The same measures are being deployed across all other sites without full interruption.
For other non-production activities globally, Airbus continues to support home-working where possible.
Some employees will be asked to return to support business continuity following the implementation of these new measures.
In February, the Airbus Final Assembly Line in Tianjin, China, reopened following a temporary production stoppage related to the coronavirus outbreak and is now operating efficiently.
Airbus is supporting those in the health, emergency and public services that rely on its aircraft, helicopters, satellites and services to accomplish their critical missions.
In addition, in the past days, the Company has donated thousands of face masks to hospitals and public services around Europe and has started to use its test aircraft to obtain larger quantities from suppliers in China.
A first flight with a test A330-800 aircraft has this weekend transported approximately 2 million masks from Tianjin back to Europe, of which the large majority will be donated to the Spanish and French authorities.
Additional flights are planned to take place in the coming days. ■
A strong storm that originated over the Pacific has tracked through the Great Basin and is currently transitioning across the Rockies to redevelop across the central High Plains later today into early Saturday morning.