Once Neck and Neck, Boeing Loses More Ground to Airbus

After a year marked by numerous setbacks, Boeing lost still more ground to its French rival Airbus in 2024. According to the company’s latest report, the American aerospace giant recorded just 348 commercial aircraft deliveries in 2024, down 180 planes from the year before. Airbus delivered 766 jetliners last year, up 31 planes from 2023.

2024 was turbulent for Boeing, to say the least. The year started with a door plug blowing out mid-air on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 flight and was shortly followed by an announcement that Alaska Airlines and United Airlines had found poorly screwed bolts on the doors of several aircraft of the same model. Several other safety incidents hit the headlines throughout the year on different aircraft models and between September and November, more than 33,000 machinist workers in the U.S. Northwest went on strike over higher wages and company benefits.

As this chart shows, Boeing and Airbus had been neck and neck in terms of deliveries until 2019. That year, the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft was grounded for 20 months after two separate crashes killed a total of 346 people: Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019. Airbus and Boeing were later both hit by the pandemic, cutting down their production as airlines took fewer planes.