Airbus, the European aircraft giant, could not make planes fast enough earlier in the year. But the coronavirus pandemic has forced it to face a devastating fact: Some airlines that put in orders do not want its planes now.

The aerospace company said on Wednesday that 60 of its aircraft could not be delivered in the first quarter, partly because the airlines that ordered them want to put off paying for them.

With the majority of the world’s commercial aircraft sitting on runways and not earning money, airlines do not need new planes.

“We are now in the midst of the gravest crisis the aerospace industry has ever known, ” Guillaume Faury, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement on Wednesday.