By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters). Europe’s Airbus forecasts 720 jetliner delivery and greater profits for 2022, after its core profit nearly tripled in 2018 due to a partial recovery of air travel and increased defence and helicopter earnings.

It also ended the two-year drought in dividends. The record net profit was 4.213 billion euro ($4.8 billion), thanks to the stoppage of A380 production and reverse of COVID-19 charges.

Airbus proposes a 1.5 euro dividend per share.

Guillaume Faury, Chief Executive, stated that “the pandemic has not yet been fully over” and added that tensions can be observed in the supply chain, logistics, and labor.

He reiterated Airbus’ production targets and said that market recovery would be complete between 2023-2025.

“It’s clear that people are keen to fly again, and they want it as soon as the restrictions are removed,” he stated.

While the adjusted operating profit of the group soared from 1.706billion to 4.865billion a year ago, revenue rose by 4% and reached 52.149billion. The increase was attributed to deliveries of 611 aircraft and costs reductions in defense and helicopters.

Airbus forecasted a core profit in 2022 of 5.5 billion.

Airbus reported a higher-than-expected fourth quarter core profit of 1.496 miliarde euros for revenue of 16.994 trillion. According to company consensus, analysts expected 1.364 billion or 16.878 billion.

Net cash increased more than 75%, to 7.6 Billion Euros. This is on the way to returning to 12.5 billion pre-crisis levels.

Airbus’ earnings rose by 274million euros from the recoupment of money it received in previous write-offs. This was to help close Europe’s biggest building, A380, in Toulouse. It now plans to use this money to make in-demand narrowbody aircrafts.

It almost cuts down the bill of 463million euros that Airbus announced after it stopped producing its world-largest jetliner due to weak sales. The final A380 arrived in December.

Airbus incurred another cost of 212 millions euros for the A400M Military Airlifter. This adds to the billions already written off in Europe’s biggest defence program.