European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has announced its year-end result in orders and deliveries. For the first time in five years, Boeing has both won more orders and delivered more aircraft than Airbus in a single year.
In total, Airbus recorded 747 net orders for all aircraft families, including the A220 (formerly called CSeries) orders from Bombardier. The takeover of this aircraft also resulted in an increase in Airbus’ backlog, despite securing less orders than it delivered. This number of net orders is down by more than 350 compared to 2017. Since Airbus is not publishing who ordered which aircraft, it is unclear who has contributed to a year-end increase in orders during December.
As it has been predicted, the manufacturer delivered a total of 800 aircraft and has therefore hit its target of 800 aircraft, which it had reduced earlier in 2018 from 820. These 800 aircraft were delivered to 93 customers around the world. The majority of planes delivered were A320 family aircraft with 626 delivered aircraft. Of those, 386 were for the new A320neo (‘new engine option’) family. Additionally, the manufacturer has delivered 93 A350, including the first A350-1000 for Qatar Airways. On top of that, three of the 800 deliveries were for the re-engined A330 family, the A330neo. With that, a total of 49 A330 family airplanes were delivered over 2018. Boeing delivered a total of 806 aircraft in 2018.
The year didn’t go without any turbulence for Airbus: In early summer of 2018, the manufacturer had to park up to 100 unfinished A320neo aircraft due to problems with engine suppliers. The A350 had also suffered some delays because of cabin certification issues. During Spring, Airbus lost its sole customer for the A330-800, the shorter version of the A330neo family, as Hawaiian Airlines switched to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. However, Uganda Air and Kuwait Airways then placed order agreements for the -800 version, bringing its total orders back up to 10. In April, American Airlines cancelled an order for 22 A350 aircraft, it instead opted for another 47 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
Read more: Boeing releases 2018 order & delivery numbers
Jan-Hendrik is an aviation enthusiast from Germany, loves to travel the world and fly on as many aircraft as possible. His first flight was with a Condor 757 to Spain and has been interested in aviation ever since. His fields of expertise are aircraft accidents and passenger experience (PaxEx).
