Virgin Atlantic, which has had three A330-300 aircraft delivered in February and March, began using its first of the type on the Manchester-Orlando route this month. The aircraft notably lacks the airline’s ‘Upper Class’ business class cabin, which better adapts to the economy and premium economy class demand to the Florida leisure destination.
Airbus wins the March delivery race over its American competitor, but only thanks to its larger number of widebody deliveries. Boeing delivered 38 aircraft from the 737 family, while Airbus fell one unit short of a tie with its deliveries of A320 family aircraft. For the year to date, Airbus’ lead is now 15 delivered aircraft more than Boeing.
Although the total of 89 delivered aircraft from both manufacturers in March is higher than previous months this year, it is lower than the 97 delivered in March last year and even slightly below the each 90 delivered in March 2009 and March 2008.
Airbus: 46 deliveries in March (37 single-aisle, 9 widebody)
Source: Airbus
In terms of the most Airbus aircraft received in March, there is a tie between easyJet, which took three A319s and two A320s, and Turkish Airlines, which had a greater spread with both narrow- and wide-bodies; an A319, two A321s and two A330-300s. Each of the two airlines thereby received a total of five Airbus aircraft in March. However, the Turkish national carrier was one of the airlines to receive aircraft from both manufacturers during last month and therefore received six aircraft as a whole.
South African Airways and Virgin Atlantic who both received their first A330s in February, continued to take more deliveries of the aircraft type in March.
The only A380s to be delivered in March both went to Lufthansa, which also took an A321 in the same month.
Notably, the Central and Eastern European low-cost carrier Wizz Air, which used to be a frequent recipient of A320s, took its first new aircraft since July last year.
Boeing: 43 deliveries in March (38 single-aisle, 5 widebody)
Source: Boeing
In addition to Turkish Airlines, airberlin and Qatar Airways were also airlines to receive aircraft from both Airbus and Boeing in March.
Ryanair continued to take a large number of 737-800s as it received eight of the type in March, following a delivery of eight in February. Norwegian was the airline with the second-most aircraft deliveries, having taken four of the same type.
A delivery notable for being unusual was to Tassili Airlines, the airline belonging to the Algerian state oil company. The 737-800 delivered is the airline’s first jet aircraft.
The 767 continues to be popular in Japan as ANA received a -300 aircraft in March.
2 Comments
Is this an article written to make Boeing feel good? The title of the article is suggestive of the fact that Boeing somehow came up ahead in the said month. The fact that airbus only had a narrow body less but a four wide body lead (and net lead) most probably only widens their revenue gap
We publish the delivery data for Airbus and Boeing on a monthly basis. In order to make the articles interesting, we need to highlight what stands out, what is different from one month to another. This would not be the case if the headline every month was “Airbus delivered more aircraft than Boeing again”. If you read beyond the headline that you take issue with, I am sure you will agree that the article is written from a neutral point of view.