One laughs, the other grimaces: while Boeing is once again mired in a crisis with its flagship aircraft, Airbus has never had so many orders in its history and managed to deliver the number of aircraft in 2023 that he had set for himself.
The European aircraft manufacturer announced on Thursday that it had received 2,094 net orders last year, shattering its previous record dating from 2013 (1,503 net orders). The group has built on the success of its A320 family single-aisle aircraft and its A350 long-haul aircraft. Excluding order cancellations and modifications, usual in this long-term industry, Airbus obtained 2,319 gross orders, including 1,835 A320s and 300 A350s, again a historic high.
After the pandemic, “we had initially predicted that aviation would recover between 2023 and 2025, but what we saw in 2023 is that alongside the single-aisle market, the wide-body market returned much sooner than planned and with vigor,” commented Christian Scherer, CEO of Airbus Commercial Aircraft, quoted in a press release.
Reduce their environmental footprint
Faced with the need to reduce their environmental footprint to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 as the sector has committed to and with global air traffic expected to double by this time, airlines are engaged in a vast movement to modernize their fleet.
To ensure their future growth, they strive to reserve available delivery slots from aircraft manufacturers as early as possible. These stretch until the start of the next decade. Mega orders have therefore accumulated in 2023 for Airbus, whether it is the Indian low-cost company IndiGo, which signed the largest in volume in the history of civil aviation (500 A320s). , Air India (250 aircraft including 40 A350s) and Turkish Airlines (230 aircraft including 60 A350s).
Christian Scherer sees this as a trend that will continue: “70% of the world fleet in service is currently from previous generations, that’s a lot of aircraft to replace, without even talking about growth”, he estimated. Airbus’ order book of 8,598 aircraft as of December 31 ensures many years of production.
The aircraft manufacturer has embarked on a significant ramp-up to respond. It therefore intends to go from 48 A320s produced each month in 2023 to 75 and from five to ten A350s monthly by 2026.
Delivery target met
But the aircraft manufacturer is experiencing persistent difficulties from part of its chain of 18,000 suppliers, some of whom are weakened by the pandemic, inflation and supply difficulties, which is delaying promised deliveries. The group nevertheless managed to deliver 735 aircraft to its customers in 2023, slightly exceeding its objective of 720.
Last year, Airbus, which was already counting on 720 aircraft, had to abandon its objectives at the end of the financial year. It ultimately delivered only 661. Deliveries are a reliable indicator of profitability in aeronautics, because airlines pay the majority of the bill when they take possession of the planes.
“It is the orders that we win today that will allow us to invest in innovative and even more sustainable solutions tomorrow,” promises Christian Scherer.
A hydrogen plane in 2035
Airbus plans to launch a hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2035, therefore not emitting CO2, and is starting to prepare the successor to the A320 for the second half of the 2030s. The situation of the European aircraft manufacturer contrasts with that of Boeing.
Its American competitor also experienced a jump in its orders (1,314 net orders, 1,456 excluding cancellations and modifications). To achieve this, it relies on the commercial success of the 737 MAX (987 orders) and the long-haul 787 (313 orders). But the American giant remains mired in production and quality control problems and only delivered 528 devices during the year.
Last week, a piece of fuselage of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX broke off in mid-flight, causing no injuries, but once again tarnishing the image of the aircraft after two accidents linked to design defects which caused a total of 346 deaths in 2018 and 2019. The American civil aviation regulatory agency (FAA) announced Thursday that it had opened a formal investigation into a possible failure by Boeing.