Airbus Picks Up The Pace With 72 Commercial Deliveries in March

Airbus has picked up the pace for aircraft deliveries in March. The European aircraft manufacturer delivered a total of 72 aircraft to a range of airlines from Aer Lingus to Wizz Air UK. Most airlines only took one plane this month, with only nine customers taking three or more aircraft.

Both of the world’s major aircraft manufacturers saw a decrease in demand for new aircraft deliveries in 2020. This was due to many airlines having to ground most of their fleets. After all, why take new planes when you’re not flying the ones you’ve already got? However, things are starting to pick up.

72 deliveries in March

Airbus managed to deliver 72 commercial aircraft in march. Unsurprisingly, Airbus shifted no A380s this month. Emirates is expected to take two of its remaining five orders throughout the course of this year. However, the airline also didn’t deliver any aircraft from the A330 family. As such, only A220, A320, and A350 family aircraft were delivered this month.

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The most popular aircraft of the month was the A320neo with 32 planes delivered. The A321neo came in second with 25 deliveries, while seven A350-900s were delivered. Meanwhile, the A220-100, A319ceo, and A350-1000 all saw just one delivery each.

IndiGo took the most aircraft of any one customer with six A321neos. Delta was in second with one A220-100, one A220-300, and two A321ceos. Seven customers took deliveries of three airbus aircraft, including Wizz Air UK, with three A321neos. Wizz Air Hungary took one A321neo, while Wizz Air Abu Dhabi took no new planes.

You can see a full breakdown of Airbus’ deliveries in the table below,

What about orders?

Airbus’ orders for March aren’t so exciting. On March 25th, an undisclosed customer placed an order for 20 Airbus A220-300s. Meanwhile, Avolon ordered eight aircraft on the last day of March. This was split between four A320neos and four A321neos. Avolon is an aircraft lessor. Yesterday Simple Flying reported that the lessor now owns 578 planes, with $7 billion in liquidity.

Added together, Airbus has clocked a total of 39 orders for aircraft so far in 2021, having seen no orders in January. However, in late February, we reported that the European aerospace giant had agreed on terms to cancel 88 aircraft orders held by Norwegian. This means that so far, total Airbus order cancellations for 2021 are at 100. Unfortunately for Airbus, this means that they are sitting on net-negative orders for the year so far of -61 aircraft.

Over at Boeing, there was cause for celebration last month, as February proved to be their first month of net-positive orders in over a year. The American aerospace giant is expected to release its order and delivery results for March in the coming days. One highlight will be the resumption of Boeing 787 deliveries for the first time since October.

What do you make of Airbus’ March orders and deliveries? Let us know what you think and why in the comments!