Orders, Deliveries and
Production Rates Jan/Feb 2023

In the annual aircraft orders race, Airbus pipped Boeing to the finishing line once more in 2022 with 1,078 new orders, some 15% higher than its rival’s 935. These figures were up by 40% and 3% respectively from the numbers achieved in 2021.

But on a net basis, after taking into account cancellations and changes to the backlog, the two manufacturers finished the year neck-and-neck. Airbus reported net orders for the year of 820, Boeing 815. Both these figures were 62% higher than those of the previous year.

This must have given some satisfaction in Seattle: back to the normal duopolistic market after Boeing’s torrid time in 2019 and 2020 in the wake of the 737MAX grounding.

However, there were distinct differences in the performance of the two manufacturers' sales teams in 2022.

Narrowbody/Widebody

Firstly on narrowbody aircraft Airbus outgunned its rival yet again with a net 875 units ordered, 50% higher than Boeing’s 584. It’s not just the fight between the A320 and 737 families — the workhorses of the short-haul markets — Airbus is helped by having the A220 (formerly Bombardier’s C-Series) in its offing and accounting for 124 of last year’s orders. Airbus has outperformed Boeing in this segment in each of the past ten years — having announced a net 8,176 narrowbody orders over the decade, 60% above Boeing’s 5,100 units — and boasts a backlog at the end of December of 6,093 A320s and 527 A220s compared with Boeing’s backlog of 4,312 737s.

On widebody equipment the fortunes appear reversed. Boeing registered 190 net orders, 75% up on that reported for 2021 — its best year’s performance since 2018 and nearly 10% above the annual average of the past decade. It is helped by its freight offering and tanker version of the 767, and was achieved in spite of some 25 787 cancellations.

In contrast, Airbus registered net cancellations of 55 widebody units in 2022. There were new orders for 19 A330s, 20 passenger A350s and 24 orders for its yet-to-be-built A350 freighter. But there were cancellations for 84 A330s (including 63 that disappeared in the restructuring of financially-challenged AirAsia X) and 34 A350s.

This was even worse a performance than the net cancellations of 25 units in 2020 and 19 in 2021 and in part the result of an own goal: in retaliation to an acrimonious legal dispute with Qatar Airways over paint cracking issues on the airline’s A350s (Qatar has the largest A350 fleet), Airbus decided to cancel Qatar’s remaining orders for 19 A350s in September last year. (It had previously in the year, with court approval, cancelled Qatar’s order for 50 A321neos). That dispute was settled “amicably” in February and those orders will probably reappear in the backlog.

Over the past decade Boeing has outsold Airbus in the widebody sector: total net orders for 1,764 aircraft over the ten years, more than twice its competitor’s 813, and Boeing had a backlog at the end of 2022 of 1,121 units compared to 619 (excluding those Qatari orders) at Airbus.

Regional disparity

Both manufacturers reported similar levels of orders from leasing companies who accounted for 15% of Boeing’s gross orders and 13% of Airbus’s — both ratios slightly below normal.

But Boeing’s intake of orders was heavily skewed to North America which accounted for 58% of the total. In this it particularly benefited from large orders from United (100 737s and 100 787s), Delta (100 737s) and good-sized orders from Southwest, Alaska, Westjet and American. Fedex and UPS also added to their 767F orders, and DHL, Fedex and Florida-based cargo carrier Western Global ordered a total 10 777Fs.

Airbus did pick up orders in the region — particularly for A220s from Air Canada, Delta and Jetblue — but the region only accounted for 7% of its total gross orders for the year.

In Europe, the only major network carrier to make orders played both sides. IAG (along with its subsidiaries British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia) placed orders for 50 737MAX (+100 options) from Seattle and nigh on 100 A320s from Toulouse. Airbus in addition gained reasonable-sized orders from easyJet, Jet2, Condor and Pegasus, to give it 216 gross orders for the region, some three times that achieved by Boeing.

Where Airbus scored highly was in Asia/Pacific — the region accounted for 37% of its orders in 2022 compared with a mere 5% for Boeing. Qantas came up with a useful order for 12 A350s to provide the equipment for its ultra-long haul Project Sunrise, but also 20 each A320s and A220s (plus 95 options) as part of its domestic fleet renewal replacing aging 717s and 737s.

But Airbus was particularly successful in China, where the three national airlines China Eastern, China Southern and Air China (along with its subsidiary Shenzhen) announced orders for nearly 300 A320s.

In this it is an apparent beneficiary of the difficult Sino-US trade relationship since Trump’s initiation of tariffs in 2018, to Boeing’s detriment.

China’s airlines continued to take delivery of aircraft through the pandemic and under China’s zero-Covid policy, but the country, while recertifying the 737MAX at the end of 2021 — one of the last countries to do so — did not allow flights of Boeing’s flagship narrowbody until the beginning of 2023.

It may also help that Airbus has had a final assembly line in Tianjin for its A320s since 2008 which may be deemed to provide more economic benefit to the PRC than Boeing’s 737 customer completion facility based in Zhoushan which it opened in 2018 in partnership with COMAC.

And then COMAC delivered its first C919 (to China Eastern) in December 2022.

Deliveries hampered

The previous cycle’s delivery peak was in 2018 (see graph) when Boeing and Airbus between them delivered 1,619 aircraft. (It would have been even higher in the following year had it not been for the grounding of the 737MAX in March 2019.)

The 737MAX-8 was re-certificated in late 2020 by both EASA and the FAA. But then in May 2021 the FAA decided to stop the certification of new 787s because of “production issues” (key takeaway: don’t embarrass the regulator), not to resume until October last year.

In total Boeing delivered 479 aircraft in 2022, including 374 737MAXs and 31 787s, slightly ahead of plan. Production of the 737 appears to have been running at c23 a month, nearly half the rate of 2019, and, because of supply chain constraints, below its planned rate of 31 a month. It is targetting 400-450 737 deliveries in 2023. The manufacturer ended the year with 250 of the type in inventory (down from 335 at the end of 2021). These included 138 units due for delivery to Chinese carriers, and 30 of the -7 and -10 variants for which its expects to get FAA certification by the end of 2023. The supply chain problems are also affecting the 787, but Boeing hopes to return to producing five aircraft per month, and expects to deliver 70-80 of the type this year, although production again stopped at the end of February.

There were 100 787s in inventory at the end of 2022. With luck it might be able to achieve its 2025/26 objective of 800 aircraft deliveries (which may even include the long delayed 777X).

In contrast Airbus delivered 663 aircraft in 2022 (net of two A350s, booked as delivered in 2021, that didn’t quite make their way to Aeroflot as planned), disappointingly below its target of 700 units. It too has been suffering from supply chain and employment skills issues, and is having trouble ramping up production, particularly of the key A320 family of aircraft. The company delivered 516 of the type in 2022, equivalent to a production rate of 43 per month — somewhat below its planned rate of 50 and well below the prepandemic peak of 60 a month. It had hoped to build production to a rate of 75 aircraft a month, but now accepts that this is unlikely before the middle of the decade. For 2023 Airbus is targeting total deliveries of 720 aircraft.