Aircraft construction: Airbus will remain well ahead of Boeing in 2022

aircraft construction
Airbus remains well ahead of Boeing in 2022

Airbus received orders for 1,078 commercial aircraft last year. photo

© Peter Kneffel/dpa

The two major aircraft manufacturers received numerous new orders last year. In terms of deliveries, Airbus was ahead of Boeing – but was below its own forecasts.

The demand for new aircraft is booming, but the manufacturers Airbus and Boeing cannot keep up because of tight supply chains.

Last year, the European Airbus group, with 661 jets delivered net, remained the largest aircraft manufacturer for the fourth year in a row, ahead of its rival Boeing from the USA, which also only delivered 480 machines due to problems it had at home. Airbus boss Guillaume Faury had actually planned 700 deliveries, but had to collect the goal at the beginning of December. However, the manager stuck to his plans for record production in the coming years when he presented the figures. An important reason for this is the ever-full order books.

In the past year, Airbus took in orders for 1,078 commercial aircraft, leaving Boeing behind with orders for 935 machines. After deducting cancellations, Airbus had 820 units, also more than its competitor. As a result, the order backlog continued to grow: At the end of December, Airbus had orders for 7,239 passenger and cargo jets on its books, around a third more than Boeing.

Last year, the US group scored again with its wide-bodied jets for long-haul routes. In the mass business with the smaller medium-haul jets, Airbus has long surpassed its competitor. Anyone who orders a medium-haul jet from the Airbus A320neo model family today will have to wait until 2029 for delivery, said sales manager Christian Scherer in a conference call with journalists. “We could sell far more A320s if we had more capacity.”

The manufacturer therefore wants to expand production of the A320neo family to 65 jets per month by 2024 and to 75 machines by 2025, as Faury confirmed. This is also due to the planned long-haul version A321XLR. Even before its first test flight last June, Airbus had collected orders for more than 500 examples of this variant.

Supply chains continue to be difficult

But bottlenecks in engines and other parts from suppliers are causing problems for the group. The development of the last few months of 2022 is likely to continue in early 2023, said Faury. Boeing also wants to stabilize its supply chains and production, as the head of the commercial aircraft division, Stan Deal, said.

How many aircraft Airbus will deliver in the current year, the manager only wants to forecast when the annual balance sheet is presented on February 16. The 661 jets from 2022 were at least eight percent more than in the second Corona year 2021. Faury had originally even aimed for 720 copies, but lowered the goal to 700 in the summer. Airbus’ record dates back to 2019, before the start of the Corona crisis: the manufacturer had handed over a total of 863 commercial aircraft to its customers across all types.

Competitor Boeing delivered 480 aircraft last year, 41 percent more than in 2021, but what was once the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer comes from a deep valley. In particular, he got more medium-haul 737 Max jets from the farm – his most popular model, which, however, was not allowed to take off worldwide for a long time after two fatal crashes from March 2019. This model series alone accounted for 387 deliveries.

dpa

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