Airbus Group - global workforce 2006-2020

The Airbus Group employed over 131,300 people as of December 31, 2020. At the end of 2020, 141,000 people were employed by the Boeing Company, Airbus Group's closest competitor in the aircraft manufacturing industry.

A short review of Airbus

Airbus was founded in 1970 and in a few decades, it became a European multinational aerospace corporation. Since the global economic interconnectedness was increasing, Airbus experienced an immense expanding aircraft market opportunity. Between 2005 and 2019, Airbus Group doubled its global revenue, reaching over 70 billion euros. The Europe-based company became a global leader in aerospace manufacturing market. As of December 31, 2020, the Emirates airline group requested 123 orders for the Airbus A380 aircraft. During that same period, over 9,000 single-aisle Airbus aircraft were in operation worldwide.

Competition in large airplane manufacturing

High capital-intensity of aircraft production keeps potential competitors from entering into a competition with Airbus. Boeing and Airbus compose 99 percent of the world’s large aircraft orders, implying a duopoly market competition between two companies. Yet, it has a major competitor, Boeing. To sustain the market-power of Airbus, it continues to invest in its capacity advancement. Between 2011 and 2020, Airbus group’s expenditure on self-financed R&D remained somewhat steady at around 2.5 billion euros annually. When it comes to the demand figures, Airbus reported gross orders of 383 aircraft in 2020. Whereas Boeing reported 184 number of aircraft orders. This low number of orders is attributed to the coronavirus pandemic.