Boeing beats rival Airbus for quarterly orders for first time since 2019
Boeing booked more net quarterly orders than rival planemaker Airbus for the first time in over two years, new statistics released today show.
From January to March 2021, the aerospace giant landed 282 more orders in total, and 76 when cancellations are taken into account.
By contrast, its European counterpart saw its net tally fall by 61 jets, largely due to a number of cancellations last month by Norwegian Air, Bloomberg reported.
It is the first time that Boeing has beaten Airbus in quarterly orders since the grounding of the 737 Max in March 2019 after two fatal crashes.
Both engineers have been struggling against a deeply challenging aviation market, with many airlines electing to cancel or postpone aircraft deliveries due to the crisis.
However, despite the continued disruption, there were signs that Boeing’s order book was beginning to stabilise.
The Seattle-based firm said it had delivered 29 aircraft in March, up from 20 in the same month last year. It also booked its second straight month of positive net orders.
This was helped by Southwest Airlines’ order of 100 737 Max planes, as well as a further 24 orders from private investment firm 777 Partners.
Air Canada also said today that it would proceed with an order for 40 737 Maxs’ after a receiving a $5.9bn bailout from the government.