Airbus dominated its U.S. enemy in 2024, according to figures released on Tuesday by Boeing’s quarter-end flight purchases and deliveries.
In the smaller narrowbody aircraft industry that services regional and intermediate-range flights, Airbus delivered 602 of its A320neo flight home aircraft while Boeing delivered just 260 of the 737 Maxes that compete head-to-head.
The larger A321neo, against which Boeing has no aircraft that can fit it in size and range, was the recipient of nearly half of those Airbus sales.
The market share supremacy of Airbus in that market segment significantly distorted the entire figures. In 2024, Boeing delivered 348 corporate jets, and Airbus delivered 766.
Market pricing information from aviation pricing company Avitas peg the Airbus sales as fair$ 52 billion, simply twice the value of Boeing’s deliveries.
Boeing’s issues last season are well documented. Following the air aircraft blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight a year ago, it had to drastically reduce the 737 Max’s production.
And a slow recovery from that came to an end when a 52-day Welders union strike halted almost all of Boeing’s assembly plants in Puget Sound.
Boeing, with an emphasis on restoring safety and quality, made the decision to resume creation quite slowly and carefully after the attack.
The whole aircraft company’s supply chain remains significantly weakened by the loss of skilled workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. So Airbus don’t ramp up output as fast as planned according to pieces shortages, limiting its ability to take more advantage of Boeing’s failure.
Airbus Commercial CEO Christian Scherer, in a media conference last year, listed the “weak links in the chain” including source of engines, seats, galleys, and some aviation structures, especially those made by disturbed partsmaker Spirit AeroSystems, the supplier Boeing may get later this year.
” The challenges that this industry is throwing at us, the world is throwing at us, are not going away,” Scherer said, noting that Airbus is making a lot of effort to assist suppliers and to train and recruit new employees.
” Airbus has shown leadership and pulled the industry up”, said Scherer.
Similar supply chain issues plagued Airbus and Boeing. That Airbus came out so far ahead is down to Boeing’s self-inflicted wounds.
Because Airbus intends to continue increasing its production as it strengthens its supply chain, Boeing must begin to turn its fortunes this year to avoid further falling behind.
Airbus now operates eight A320 jet family assembly lines — two in Toulouse, France, four in Hamburg, Germany, one in Tianjin, China, and one in Mobile, Alabama— all now equipped to build the larger A321 model.
Scherer reiterated Airbus’s plans to increase A320 family production from 50 per month in 2024 to 75 per month in 2027.
By 2026, Airbus intends to add another A320 assembly line to its portfolio in Mobile and another A320 assembly line in Asia as part of that expansion.
As demand for jets soars, airlines are quick to place an order for Airbus.
On the sales front, Boeing also lagged Airbus badly. Airbus won 826 net orders in 2024, while Boeing won 377.
Separately, Boeing removed a net 60 orders from its official backlog in 2024. Those are not canceled, but they can no longer be considered firm orders in accordance with accounting standards because of the ambiguity regarding whether the customers can accept delivery.
If those were cut from the tally, Boeing’s net orders for last year would fall to 317.
Estimating the value of the orders is less precise than the calculated value of deliveries because there is no information on which Boeing sub-models of the Max were included in the canceled orders. That said, the data indicates Boeing’s 377 net orders were valued at about half that of the Airbus orders.
Due to the media attention and the delay in obtaining the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval for the release of three new airplane models, the Max 7, Max 10 and 777X, some airlines hesitant to place new orders for Boeing jets and cancelled some prior orders.
Airbus had 52 orders cancelled in 2024, while Boeing had 192 cancellations.
Fully 135 of the Boeing cancellations were from one airline, Jet Airways of India, which was liquidated last year. When Jet ceased operations in 2019 and those orders were previously removed from its official backlog, Boeing had already done so.
Airbus and Boeing each made big bets in the Indian market, with very different outcomes.
Boeing made a significant amount of money to Jet and the low-cost airline SpiceJet, while Airbus raked in large orders from rival SpiceJet IndiGo.
Jet is out of business, SpiceJet went through a sharp downturn and shrank dramatically. IndiGo is now India’s largest airline.
Boeing losing ground in widebody aircraft
In the market for larger, more expensive widebody jets, Boeing has historically had a competitive advantage over Airbus.
But even there, Airbus in 2024 delivered 89 widebodies, one more than Boeing. Additionally, Boeing won 133 net orders for widebody jets last year, while Airbus won 220 net orders for the same model.
Benoit de Saint-Exupéry, Airbus ‘ sales director, claimed that the result was favorable because the European company had surpassed Boeing in both widebody deliveries and orders.
Airbus delivered 57 of those jets and won orders for 138 more.
With the particularly large A350-1000 model, Boeing has no new widebody jet that is ready to compete with it, which highlights the threat.
In December, Boeing delivered its final vintage 777 passenger aircraft, which had been stored since the COVID pandemic hit in 2020.
With the 777’s replacement, the 777X, long delayed and not scheduled to enter service until late 2026 at the earliest, demand for the A350 has taken off.
” The A350 has clearly emerged as the long-haul leader”, Saint-Exupéry said, adding that he projects it will be” the reference for replacing the big 777 fleet around the world”.
By 2028, Airbus intends to increase the A350 deliveries to 12 jets per month and the smaller widebody A330neo to four jets per month.
And there is a change in the one commercial aircraft market, where Boeing has until recently seen little competition from Airbus — cargo aircraft.
Boeing will stop making the 767 freighter in 2027 and the new 777X freighter won’t enter the market until 2028 at the earliest. That offers an opening for the A350F cargo plane.
Starlux Airlines of Taiwan ordered five more A350Fs this month, too late for the 2024 order total, to double the jet’s total and increase its total order count to 60.
” One of our goals for 2025 is to get past the major freight companies in the United States. S”. said Saint-Exupéry, targeting the one cargo market still largely closed to Airbus.
The pressure from Airbus appears to be getting more and more intense as Boeing prepares for its 2025 launch with an ambition to correct its course and increase production safely.
___
© 2025 The Seattle Times
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
