On Thursday, the European aerospace giant said it expected to stop burning through cash in the fourth quarter.

It's managed to speed up deliveries off new jets to cash strapped airlines.

Chief Executive Jeong Furry says the firm has learned a lot about how to cope with this year's crisis.

But he also warned that airline traffic was taking longer to recover than expected and production could yet see further disruption.

With France and Germany home to key Airbus factories facing new lock down measures in the third quarter, underlying operating profit at the plane maker tumbled by almost a half to about $960 million.

Though that was better than analyst forecasts, Airbus managed to reduce its stock off UN delivered airliners over the period.

For the full year, experts predict it will deliver about 500 to 550 new jets that would be down from 863 last year.