Welcome to Flight Global Focus, your essential podcast for
trusted aviation insight. Hello.
I'm Dominic Perry, Flight Global's European Aerospace
Editor in London. And as it's our first podcast of
2026 today, we're obviously going to be looking backwards,
not forwards, and dissecting last year's order and delivery
performance for the big two commercial air framers, Airbus
and Boeing. Now before we start digging into
the numbers, it's with pointing out that we aren't here to say
which side won and that's inverted commas around that
looking at an arbitrary 12 month snapshot is just too simplistic.
But perhaps we can offer a little deeper context and
analysis on the figures. Joining me to do just that are
John Hemmerdinger, Flight Global's US based Aerospace
Managing Editor and our official Boeing Watcher and David
Kaminski Morrow, our European Air Transport Editor and our all
round Airbus expert. Hi Dom, thanks for having me
today. Thanks Domlick, it's good to see
you again. You are more than welcome.
In broad terms, Airbus out delivered Boeing by 793 to 600
last year, but it was always going to do so given the state
of its rivals production system, particularly on the narrow body
side. That output was capped at 38
aircraft per month for most of the year.
But on the sales side the roles were reversed with Boeing
comfortably trumping. And yes, that pun is deliberate
to lose with 1175 orders against 1000.
So, David, you've been covering Airbus for more years than
either of us can. Care to remember away from all
this immediate noise? What's your take on the figures?
I think I'd highlight three interesting points from the
Airbus figures that the first is that it delivered 607-A320 neo
family aircraft last year. And sometime in September, one
of those handovers meant the A320 finally overtook the Boeing
737 in terms of all time deliveries.
And that's taken 37 years to achieve.
And it would probably have taken much longer if it hadn't been
for some recent unfortunate events, namely the grounding in
the 737 Max in 2019, the problems caused by the pandemic
and the capping of 737 Max production two years ago.
So that's one point. I think the second observation
is that there's a continuing extraordinary popularity with
the A321 neo. Half of last year's 1000 gross
orders were for the aircraft alone.
The increase in its capabilities, the passenger
accommodation, the range have been very successful and it's
really left the A320 neo behind. And bear in mind that the A320
neo was originally the Keystone model in Airbus's single hour
range. And the third thing I think I'd
mentioned is the 5050 split in a 350 orders between the 900 and
the Dash 1000. And that's noticeable because
the the Dash 1000, which was intended to challenge the Boeing
777300ER has been a bit slow to to gain traction.
There's been several years in which it's scored a duck in the
order figures, but last year, 82 orders for that 1000.
So the big question there is whether that's an outlier or
whether that momentum can be sustained, especially against
777X. Of course, Airbus had its own
supply chain struggles last year and crawled rather than raced to
its revised delivery target. What does the airframer said
about this recently? Well, Airbus stuck to its
familiar script of being back loaded at the beginning of the
year and then putting all hands to the pump in the last quarter
to push everything it needs to push out the door.
Engines were a sticking point at the beginning of the year.
A320 neo deliveries fell behind and that meant Airbus was having
to park about 60 or so engine less aircraft at mid year and
then burning through those deliveries as the engines became
available. But the reason Airbus didn't
reach its original delivery forecast about 120 aircraft is
the late emergence of a quality escape, as it's euphemistically
called, which related to the thickness of some A320 neo
fuselage panels from the supplier.
Airbus managed to deliver 793 aircraft, which was more than
previous year, but that's also three years out, last four in
which it's missed its original target.
It's not issued the 2026 forecast yet, but the Airbus
commercial aircraft chief, Christian Shearer, he was
speaking a briefing on full year results.
He said that he'd rather aim high than be timid with the
outlook, but of course it's not going to be his problem anymore
anyway because he's just handed over the reins to his successor,
Lars Wagner, who's going to be taking things from here.
And David, did Airbus also touch on Spirit aero systems during
it's briefing? Just as a reminder to our
listeners, Spirit was an aero structure supplied to both
Airbus and Boeing and has or had, I'm not sure if we're using
the past tense yet, a whole raft of quality and financial issues
which led Boeing to acquire most of the business.
The rest went to Airbus and a deal that concluded late last
year. Spirit was only mentioned in
passing, but the crucial part of the Spirit deal for Airbus is
the acquisition of the centrifuge, A large section work
on the A-350 because that's been a thorn in its side for a
considerable time. Last year, Airbus delivered
57A-350. That's about five a month, only
about half the rate it was achieving before the pandemic.
The centre fuse largest built in North Carolina.
That's being integrated following the Spirit deal into a
new entity called Airbus Aero Systems Kingston.
Airbus has a three-year plan to unjam the bottlenecks in order
to raise a 350 production back to 10 and then up to 12 aircraft
a month in 2028. And that's important because by
the end, Airbus hopes to be building not only the two A-350
passenger variants, but the A-350 freighter as well.
And John Boeing had a better year on the delivery front,
particularly on the 737 Max. What's changed there?
And how critical is his purchase of spirit to maintaining that
momentum? Yeah, Dom, good questions.
What changed is I think first of all is 2025 was a year without
any major quality problems for Boeing.
If you compare it to 2024, you'll remember in January 2024
was when that Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 suffered that blown
out mid cabin door during a flight.
No one was seriously injured, but that event really shown a
spotlight on Boeing's production system and it's quality
problems. It turned out in the end, what
appears to have happened is that mid cabin door was not
assembled, or rather some rivets weren't assembled correctly when
the fuselage was shipped from Spirit and Boeing opened the
door at its Renton site. And it appears workers just did
not put back the four bolts that hold the door in place, the door
plug, and that's why it failed. So a really major problem that
started the previous year. I was talking about 20, 24 and
and that's why Boeing's delivery numbers were so really bad that
year. What happened in 2025 was they
didn't have that sort of issue. They didn't have really any
major new quality issues. Nothing came up.
Boeing wasn't in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons last
year, and as a result of that 2024 blow out, their production
system for the 737 was also capped, was capped at 38 for
most of last year by the FAA. And So what Boeing did is they
actually really did seem to improve their production numbers
all through 2025. Sometime toward the back half of
the year, the FAA cleared them to move to rate 42 a month on
the 737, though they don't seem to probably don't seem to have
hit that number, but they did significantly ramp production
all through the year. At the same time, they they
really did a great job of getting the 787 production
system in Charleston, North Charleston, SC back on track.
That had been slowed way down due to other production problems
happening on the other side of the US.
So the bottom line was Boeing last year delivered four, I
think it was 447, seven, three sevens.
That's an average of 37 per month and they delivered 8878
sevens or seven monthly. Big improvement over the
previous year. I, I just will say there's a
sense that Boeing really did turn a corner last year.
Well, remember not all of the problems that were affecting
Boeing were specifically Boeing's problems.
It's suppliers had troubles too and, and perhaps none more than
what was its largest supplier, Spirit Aero Systems in Wichita.
They produce 737 Max fuselages and many other components for
all other Boeing commercial jets.
But they had struggled for years with mistrilled holes, loose
bolts and rudder assemblies, various things, and those were
delaying fuselage deliveries. And also Boeing was getting
fuselages that then needed rework, and Boeing was having to
slow its production lines to accommodate that rework.
As a result of those issues, Boeing actually decided to
acquire Spirit, which closed at the end of last year and
December last year. We will see whether Boeing is
able to to address those quality problems.
The transaction's still very new and we can't say for sure what
has been fixed and what has not been fixed.
Yeah, I can imagine it's going to be a huge integration job,
and goodness knows how long that's going to last.
But just to turn to the sales figures, it was clearly a very
good year for Boeing. We've covered this before, of
course, but it certainly appears to be benefiting from President
Trump's tariff threats and trade agreements.
What's your take on this? I think it's worth repeating the
degree to which President Trump had an influence on Boeing's
orders. Last year.
You mentioned the number 11175 orders for Boeing, which was way
up from 2024. And it seemed like every time
President Trump or one of his cabinet members had a meeting, a
trade deal meeting with a foreign nation, that the issue
of Boeing orders came up. It started or, or maybe the most
notable one happened in Doha with Boeing Chief executive
Kelly Ortberg was sitting at a table with Trump and with the
CEO of Qatar Airways. And right then and there, the
CEO signed for 160 Boeing jets while Trump sort of looked on
and, and that just continued. the US was renegotiating all
these trade deals and, and, and Boeing had become a point of
leverage with, with the president.
Trump used he, of course, he's Boeing as one of the US as most
important or most critical production manufacturing
companies and you could call them Boeing's best salesperson.
So I made a list and here, here's the countries that
ordered Boeing jets are committed to them and the the
all these deals are related to trade agreements with the USA,
Bahrain, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Tajikistan, Thailand,
Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. It's pretty extensive.
It's pretty remarkable, all those orders.
That, of course, was largely on the wide body side.
But having said all that, we seem to be in the same situation
we've been in for several years now where Boeing is strong in
wide bodies and Airbus is strong in narrow bodies.
What do you think is driving that split, David?
Airbus started off in wide bodies with the A3 hundreds, but
its subsequent ventures have been, I think, a little hit and
miss. The A330 was obviously very
popular, the A340 much less so. And they were obviously burned
with the A380 Fabulous aeroplane, not the one the
airlines were looking for. And really, that's left Boeing
to run riot with 777787. And that's why the the A-350 has
become so important to Airbus. Boeing, to be fair, has also had
strong selling narrow bodies. The 727 when I was a kid was the
world's most popular airliner until 737 took over.
And don't forget that 757 was also a big hit.
But Boeing stopped building the 757 and that's allowed the A320
family and particularly as we've seen the A32 into one Neo to
move into that space, as well as the 73 Sevens.
And so the A320, which was originally expected only to sell
in the hundreds, is now selling in the 10s of thousands and
counting. Right, that's enough looking
backwards. Just to wrap up, let's look to
the future. What are going to be the hot
topics for each airframer this year?
So, John, what's bothering Boeing?
Yeah, What's up? What's bothering Boeing is it
needs to keep up the momentum that it had last year.
So the company that says it's at a production rate on the 737 of
42 a month, that's its official stance of 42 a month.
We don't necessarily think they're actually producing that
many, but they're they're sort of running the production system
broadly toward that rate. And what they need to do is to
stabilise at that rate and get all the suppliers on board and
get everything moving at that rate.
And then they hope later this year to break to the next rate,
which is 4773 sevens a month. They will need the FAA's
permission to do that. But the Boeing says it expects
to receive that authority this year at some later time.
Boeing hopes to get to 5273 sevens a month.
I don't think we'll see that this year.
But when Boeing does get there, it will largely have returned to
the production rates on the on the 737 that it was at prior to
all the problems that started with the 737 Max crisis back in
2018. Starting in 2018, similarly,
Boeing wants to get more 7-8 sevens out the door.
It is right now at about 878 sevens monthly production.
And before the end of this year, Boeing hopes to get to 1078
sevens monthly. Remember that Boeing only
produces 78 sevens at it's North Charleston site now, and 10
monthly is the maximum that Boeing can produce there now.
The company late last year also revealed that it is building a
second 787 assembly facility in North Charleston right alongside
the the first one. And that will allow Boeing to
double its capacity, meaning eventually hitting 27/8 sevens a
month. But that will that that second
site will not open until 2028. So we're still a ways away from
that. Yeah, I, I suppose, John,
somewhat critically, Boeing needs to do all that without
suffering another high profile quality problem.
Otherwise it's back to square 1. And David, just from your
perspective, what's agitating Airbus?
I think Airbus's concerns for this year will be the supply
chain again, almost inevitably it's still discussing things
like near term engine supply. It's not quite managed to settle
that down yet. The Spirit acquisition is going
to be a priority because that's critical to its ramp up plans
for, particularly for the A-350. And there's a lot riding on
development the A-350 freighter, which is scheduled to fly for
the first time this year. Well, thank you both for those
insights. Thanks, Tom.
We're sure we'll speak soon.
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