As the aircraft manufacturing industry moves away from the COVID-19 pandemic, we ask the following question: Who has the biggest order backlog? Airbus or Boeing?
Using data from both Airbus and Boeing‘s orders & deliveries pages online, let’s see who has the biggest backlogs to contend with.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Starting with Airbus…
As per the European planemaker’s site, here is their overall table:
| Single-Aisle | A300/A310 | A330 | A340 | A350 | A380 | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Orders | 18543 | 816 | 1781 | 377 | 1034 | 251 | 22802 |
| Total Deliveries | 11273 | 816 | 1576 | 377 | 550 | 251 | 14843 |
| Aircraft in Operation | 10577 | 267 | 1461 | 203 | 550 | 232 | 13290 |
If you deduct the total orders from the total deliveries, this produces a backlog of around 7,959 aircraft, which is a considerable number of aircraft yet to be produced and delivered.
Such dominance from Airbus has come off the back of the woes that Boeing has had in the past with the 737 MAX and 787 programs alike, as well as its niche dominance with the A321XLR program too.
A lot of this backlog from the European planemaker is attributed to the single-aisle family, of which Airbus is wanting to increase production to 75 aircraft per month by 2026.
Having such a backlog isn’t stopping Airbus, however. At the Paris Air Show, a mega order for 500 aircraft was announced alongside long-standing customer IndiGo.
How Is Boeing Getting On?
Below is Boeing’s breakdown of total unfilled orders, with any adjustments made, as well as the overall backlog across the 737, 767, 777 & 787 programs:
What we can see is that the backlog is lower than Airbus by 3,031 aircraft. However, this will no doubt continue to creep up and reduce the gap in due time.
At the Paris Air Show 2023 alone, they sold 359 aircraft, including those that are previously unidentified. Sales momentum like this occurred at the Farnborough Air Show last year as well.
As we head into the Dubai Air Show this year, it will be interesting to see whether such momentum can carry on moving forward or whether we have to wait for Farnborough next year to continue that pattern.
Overall…
What remains clear is that despite the sales momentum being experienced by Boeing at the moment, Airbus still comfortably leads ahead in terms of orders secured.
Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see whether Boeing can continue its sales momentum to get to a position where their backlog is similar to that of Airbus and show that it can sell more airplanes after a tumultuous few years.
But for now, all eyes are on both sides to see what else may get announced by the end of the year.
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