The aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, thrown back by the corona shock, are catching up again thanks to increasing demand. Airbus leaves its American competitor well behind.
Airbus can defend its leading position among aircraft manufacturers.
In the second Corona year, the major aircraft manufacturers got back on their feet. Companies benefit from the increasing demand for modern jets. In a great duel, Airbus flies away from its arch-rival Boeing.
The European Airbus group delivered 611 commercial jets last year, defending its position as the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer for the third time in a row. Thanks mainly to a final spurt at the end of the year, he was able to improve sales by 8 percent compared to the previous year.
“Even if there are still uncertainties, we are on the right track to further increase production in the course of 2022,” said Airbus boss Guillaume Faury on Monday evening when the results for 2021 were published.
The orders are impressive: a total of more than 771 passenger and cargo aircraft were ordered from Airbus last year, around twice as many as in the previous year. After deducting the high number of 264 cancellations, 507 remained. The order backlog at the end of the year was 7082 machines.
The crisis is far from over. The level of 863 deliveries from the record year 2019 was unattainable for Airbus. After the slump in air traffic in spring 2020, the manufacturer cut production by around 40 percent and handed over 566 machines in the year as a whole.
Boeing is recovering much more slowly
The American competitor Boeing, on the other hand, is recovering from the crisis much more slowly. He is still suffering severely from the aftermath of the fiasco with the medium-haul 737 Max. Worldwide, take-off bans for the Group’s most important model were in effect between March 2019 and November 2020. The reason was two fatal crashes due to malfunctions. In addition, Boeing had to suspend delivery of its 787 Dreamliner long-haul jet for months due to technical problems.
However, Boeing also improved significantly in the past year. The American aircraft manufacturer presented its figures today, Tuesday. The results that were already available by the end of November – 302 passenger and cargo jets had been delivered by then – show, however, that it will lag far behind Airbus.
Almost only short and medium-haul jets are in demand
Because travel restrictions still apply due to the Corona crisis, business with large long-haul aircraft is suffering at both aircraft manufacturers. Short- and medium-haul jets are particularly popular at the moment.
At Airbus, 87 percent of the machines delivered were from the A320 family, its new edition A320neo and the smaller A220. In the case of large jets, the A350 had 55 deliveries and the A330neo only 18 deliveries. In addition, Airbus delivered the last five copies of the giant double-decker A380 jet, the production of which was discontinued due to lack of demand.
Some of the new long-haul version A321XLR are also included in the orders for the A320neo Family. With this model, flights from Central Europe to the USA, for example, should also pay off with fewer passengers. The first delivery is still planned for 2023.
With agency information.