Airbus operational single-aisle fleet has reached 10,000 aircrafts

The Airbus A220 has helped the airframer’s operating single-aisle fleet reach a five-figure number globally, according to the company’s most current backlog statistics.

The fleet’s official single-aisle count topped 10,000 in July 2022.

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A320-family jets, including slightly more than 4,300 examples of the conventional A320, which continues to dominate the fleet, made up about 7,466 of these aircraft, or about 75%.

The A320neo series has 2,331 airframes with new engines.

But with the 2018 acquisition of the A220 programme, the number of single-aisle aircraft has increased to 10,020, even though Bombardier actually delivered 37 A220s as the CSeries.

In June 2012, there were more than 5,000 Airbus single-aisle aircraft operating globally. Before the outbreak, this fleet had around 600 aircraft, but during the crisis, the number of aircraft fell to around 400.

Airbus reported 10,664 single-aisle deliveries by the end of July, including 10,441 A320 and A320neo aircraft.

Single-aisle jet production dominance by Airbus fuels the sector’s recovery

Since the pandemic’s peak last year, the multibillion dollar passenger jet manufacturing industry has had a strong recovery.

And of the two biggest aircraft producers in the world, Europe’s champion Airbus has outperformed American rival Boeing in the recovery.

With a total of 951 deliveries by the end of 2021, the two industry titans in aerospace. Although it was still 41% below the record of 1,606 in 2018, it was 32% higher than in 2020.

Airlines have flocked to Airbus’ medium-sized A320 family of jets for domestic flights as well as, increasingly, international travel, which has been the main engine of the recovery in the single-aisle or “middle market,” where Airbus already had a strong lead before the crisis.

The A321LR, a long-range medium-sized aircraft, is being used by low-cost airlines such as American jetBlue and Aer Lingus to cross the Atlantic. Prior to customer deliveries beginning in 2023, Airbus’ new, even longer range narrow body, the A321XLR, will fly for the first time this year.

45% of the A320 family deliveries in 2021 will be made by the European aircraft manufacturer’s A321, according to consultant Cirium statistics.

According to recent data, “we estimate this to approach 50% this year,” said Richard Evans, senior consultant at Cirium, an aviation company that monitors airline fleets throughout the globe.

“It would be a first-ever occurrence. That size and capability are becoming more and more popular. In that market, Boeing lacks a competitive offering due to the 737 Max 10’s delayed entry into service.”

The managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, Richard Aboulafia, is equally confident about the future of Airbus’s dominance in that market niche. It is obvious that Airbus’s numbers in that region are rapidly increasing.

After two tragic crashes caused the 737 Max to be grounded globally in March 2019, Boeing has been hindered by the fallout from the incident as well as more recently by manufacturing issues with the 787 Dreamliner wide body. To challenge Airbus’s hegemony, the business has, at least publicly, cancelled plans for a new midsized plane.