Airbus Group - global workforce 2006-2019

The Airbus Group employed just under 135,000 people as of December 31, 2019. At the end of 2019, more than 161,000 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 in 2019. The Europe-based company became a global leader in aerospace manufacturing market. For instance, in the UK at the end of 2019, two leading Airbus models made up the majority of aircraft in the country. As of March 31, 2020, the Emirates airline group requested 123 orders for the Airbus A380 aircraft. During that same period, roughly 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 2019, 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 over 1,100 number of aircraft in 2019. Whereas Boeing reported 250 number of aircraft orders. This huge difference in the number of orders is attributed to two major airplane crashes the new model Boeing 737 Max caused. This was a new airplane developed in response to the competition with Airbus. Since then, Boeing continues to experience hurdles globally.