Airbus has some serious work to do if the company is going to achieve its delivery target for 2025. The bottom line is that the European giant has to get more that 100 planes per month out of the factories in both November and December. If Airbus pulls it off (which seems unlikely) then the company will post a pretty impressive year.
European aircraft manufacturer Airbus delivered 585 planes in the first ten months of 2025…. That leaves roughly 235 more deliveries in the final two months to hit its annual goal of around 820 aircraft. The total includes 78 aircraft handed over in October.
Reuters added that aviation industry analysts remain fairly confident that Airbus will either make the number or fall just short of 820 tally, and the company’s CEO, Guillaume Faury, has already said that 2025 would close out with a surge. But oh boy! The planemaker is really going to have to kick it into gear, and it can’t afford any mistakes.
Airbus isn’t slowing down
On top of all that, Airbus wants to increase its 2026 orders to 1,200 aircraft, and Reuters reported that much of that would come from a big purchase by China of some 500 planes, which hasn’t yet been finalized after a year of negotiating. So the company isn’t looking to reduce the pace. Meanwhile, rival Boeing has been lagging pretty far behind Airbus in 2025: the U.S. giant has delivered 493 aircraft in 2025, according to AeroTime, but that’s a lot better than 2024’s total of 348. The American side of the duopoly is basically in recovery mode at this point, so the big improvement in deliveries is to be expected.
And if you think that Boeing’s struggles with delays to the 777X and its assorted 737 MAX woes have turned customers off the company, think again. AeroTime also reported that Boeing has 836 new orders in 2025, versus Airbus’s 722. It’s not easy to switch from one airframe to another if you’re a major airline, so that means your customers stick with you.
What could slow Airbus down
Aerospace Global News offered a good breakdown of what Airbus has to contend with to hit its 2025 delivery target, arguing that the company has “no margin for slippage.” Airbus has been optimistic about its ability to finish building engine-less airframes, called “gliders” in the industry. What could imperil the 820-plane finish line is the actual engines not being available, as well as slowdowns with cabin components.
Neither colossus of the skies is in any serious danger of lacking future business: both Boeing and Airbus have order backlogs of more than 6,500 and 8,600, respectively. Those are immense numbers, but once again, this is a duopoly. If you’re an airline and you fly 737s, you have exactly one company to buy them from, if you want new planes. Same deal if you fly A320s. It’s always interesting to monitor the Boeing-Airbus race every year to see who comes out on top. But you also know that only first and second place are at stake.
