Plane giant Airbus says it is on target to match its 2008 delivery figures despite a hard year for the sector.

A drop in global passenger demand has Airbus and US rival Boeing headed for their worst annual order tally in at least 15 years as airlines cancel and defer orders, weighing on the whole aerospace supply sector.

It has also emerged that Airbus has seen 250 staff at Broughton and Filton take voluntary redundancy or early retirement this year.

Airbus has booked 149 gross orders – before cancellations – this year.

Its target is 300 orders for 2009, meaning it has a lot to make up in the fourth quarter.

Tom Williams, Airbus's vice president of programmes said: "We're on track to repeat the 2008 delivery record of 483 planes in 2009."

The aerospace giant has started work on a 46,000sq m factory at its site in Broughton, North Wales, and is recruiting suppliers to the project.

The factory will build the A350's wings and help to secure 10,500 jobs in Britain for the next decade.

Wings for the whole range are designed and part-built in Filton, where Airbus has 5,000 staff. The Broughton factory will begin assembly of its first wing this time next year.

The aircraft is scheduled to make its first flight in 2012.

Its operations support more than 2,000 suppliers and 135,000 UK jobs. However, Spain, Germany and France, the other Airbus partner countries, had hoped to win more work on the A350 and had lobbied for the wings to be made outside the UK.

Brian Fleet, head of the wing programme until his retirement in March 2010, said the British operations had to fight to maintain wing production in the UK and had committed to efficiency improvements that will cut the cost of each wing by about 30 per cent.

The Government has also committed £340 million in repayable launch aid to the A350 to ensure that wing work is maintained in the UK.

Airbus has repeatedly cut 2009 production targets for the A380 mammoth passenger jet and now plans to deliver only 13 this year.

Airbus also said the new A400M military transporter aircraft would fly before the end of the year.

On the new A350 passenger jet, Mr Williams said the company would start producing 10 aircraft per month and that its first flight would be in late 2012.