(Bloomberg) -- Airbus SE has put the brakes on a ramp-up in production of its newest jet, the A220 narrow-body, as the coronavirus hits demand across the European planemaker’s lineup of aircraft.

A plan to start accelerating output toward 10 a month from the current four at the main A220 plant in Mirabel, Quebec, will be postponed until mid-2021, an Airbus spokeswoman said. A goal to build four a month by the middle of the decade in Mobile, Alabama, where a new assembly line has just started, remains unchanged, she said.

The slowdown on the A220, a program acquired from Bombardier Inc., will add to the cuts announced by Airbus last week in response to a rapid reversal of fortune for its airline customers. The company then said it would slash output to about 48 planes a month across its A320, A330 and A350 programs. At the time, Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury said the company was still assessing demand for the smaller A220.

Back in February, when Airbus raised its stake in the program to 75%, the company said the A220 was seeing “very strong demand” and was positioning it to help draw orders away from archrival Boeing Co.’s grounded 737 Max. Since then, the coronavirus has forced airline customers to delay or cancel orders across aircraft models to conserve cash.

Faury’s pledge to invest between 500 million euros ($544 million) and 1 billion euros in the A220 operation this year remains unchanged, the spokeswoman said. She said a plan to squeeze costs from the program remains a top priority.

Airbus had earlier targeted producing 14 A220 aircraft a month at the two sites by the middle of the decade. Now the Toulouse, France-based company is re-considering its previous assumptions, and may revisit the rate in the coming weeks and months, the spokeswoman said.

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