Originally Posted by
Zen Pilot
Industry practice is that customers pay deposits when placing aircraft orders and then stage payments prior to and during the manufacture of their aircraft. So the aircraft manufacturer could be in a cash neutral situation.........
The reality is that the purchaser generally negotiates payment terms which are favourable (i.e cash positive) to themselves. Given how competitive the aircraft manufacturing industry is, I can't see that Airbus would be in a position to demand staged payments that would give them positive cashflow.