Leonardo Says it is Confident it will Break-even in 2025

Leonardo says that it will continue to improve its aerospace sector and is confident that it will break-even in 2025.

The “good progress” made by the company in restructuring the sector and reducing losses was “interrupted” by the covid-19 and the consequent decline in civil aircraft production.

Lucio Valerio Cioffi, general manager of Leonardo, said, “We are on a recovery path with a clear vision and strategy, which allows us to invest more than EUR€300 million to reposition the civil aviation structure business and make it stronger in the future.”

Cioffi said that the business still faces major challenges. One of the factors is insufficient capacity utilization, which Leonardo has begun to address by signing an agreement with air taxi developer Vertical Aerospace to produce fuselages for the VX4 aircraft.

The two companies will collaborate on the design, testing, manufacturing and supply of the initial six fuselages for the VX4 certification program, which will be completed in Grottaglie.

The agreement also includes the potential to expand fuselage production to 2,000 aircraft per year to meet the demand of orders in Vertical’s existing markets.

Vertical has what it believes to be the largest conditional advance order book (by value) in the eVTOL industry, including up to 1,350 aircraft from American Airlines, Avolon, Bristow and Iberojet, with a value of $5.4 billion, as well as orders from Virgin Atlantic and Marubeni Aerospace.

Vertical’s VX4 is a silent, all-electric unmanned aircraft that is expected to have a range of more than 100 miles and a maximum speed of 200 miles per hour. The zero-emission VX4 can carry four passengers.

A test flight program for the VX4 is expected to begin later in 2022. Cioffi says that advanced air mobility, including both manned and unmanned systems, will be an important part of the company’s technological development route in the next 20 years.