The two civil aviation rivals, Airbus and Boeing, unveiled their order and delivery reports for the year 2022 on Tuesday. Result: the European company has maintained its lead over its American competitor, which is, however, beginning to recover the aftermath of the 737 MAX scandal.
In a statement, Boeing said it delivered 480 aircraft in total last year – representing a 40% increase from 2021, as well as the company’s best performance since 2018. The company also reports having received 808 net orders.
However, these rising results are not enough to supplant Airbus, which still records less strong results than expected. The company announced that it had delivered 661 aircraft in 2022, well below the 720 initially planned, due to the difficulties of the global chain of suppliers to follow the ramp-up decreed by Airbus, and recorded 820 net orders during the last year.
Maintaining Airbus’ lead over Boeing “was written in the sky”, underlines Mehran Ebrahimi, professor and director of the International Observatory of Aeronautics and Civil Aviation of the ‘ESG-UQAM, in light of these figures.
“It’s a fundamental trend that has been in place for several years. The 737 Max crisis has worsened the situation for Boeing, but for the past fifteen years, we have seen a change in governance philosophy. We went from a culture of engineers to a culture of financiers and that contributed to the collapse of Boeing. While Airbus, for its part, has gained credibility, ”said Mr. Mehran.
After the crashes of Lion Air in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines in March 2019, the 737 MAX aircraft model was banned from flying for twenty months until the end of 2020. Boeing then recorded in 2019 and 2020 more cancellations than orders.
With Agence France-Presse.
Further details will follow.