Boeing has had a bad year, you may have heard. Well, some bad years actually, as it tries to fix the mess that the 737 MAX is. It’s largely thanks to that mess that Airbus will be better than Boeing for the second year in a row.
The two aircraft makers have been locked in a heated rivalry the only two companies for decades that manufacture large jet aircraft (for now). They each usually deliver 600 800 planes a year, but the pandemic has reduced those numbers. AAnd mostly because of the 737 MAX, those numbers are way down for Boeing.
That means Airbus will deliver more planes than Boeing this year, as it did in 2019, when Airbus took the title and ended a seven-year run for Boeing at the top.
From Reuters:
Barring widespread new travel unrest, industry sources expect Airbus to deliver 550-560 planes in 2020, after reaching more than 520 this week, with nine days of the year remaining.
But they cautioned that deliveries are subject to an unusual number of variables and schedules aren’t set in stone. Airbus is unlikely to repeat a record increase of more than 100 deliveries in December last year.
An Airbus spokesperson declined to comment on details, but said Airbus continued to operate normally.
[…]
Total Airbus deliveries are expected to drop by 35% this year due to the impact of the pandemic on airlines, but Airbus has an insurmountable lead over Boeing, which delivered 118 planes through the end of November, while the 737 MAX during that period was grounded.
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You can expect this rivalry to be one for a long time, while Boeing is slowly but surely recovering from the 737 MAX disaster and see that be the only competition in the space of the big jet is still Airbus only. That is the situation to China C919 is ready to go, with deliveries expected sometime next year or in 2022, at which point it could get really interesting.