Airbus Isn't Delivering

Currency and sales troubles add to production woes
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Building commercial and military aircraft is a fiendishly tricky and time-consuming business. Fortunately, explaining what went wrong with Airbus's first-quarter earnings isn't.

The European manufacturer has almost 957 billion euros ($1.1 trillion) worth of planes in its order book. That counts for little if you can't actually deliver the aircraft to your customers on time. Airbus is struggling.