Airbus surpassed 500 deliveries at the nine-month mark, handing over nearly 50 more aircraft than it had by the same point last year.
Its total figure of 503 included 395 A320-family jets, of which 222 were re-engined variants – meaning that the A320neo and A321neo accounted for 56% of all A320 deliveries.
Overall single-aisle output was lifted to 403 aircraft with the inclusion of eight A220s, of which three were delivered in September, one each to Korean Air, Swiss and Air Baltic.
Seven A350-1000s were among the 61 A350 deliveries, while the remaining output comprised 31 A330s and eight A380s.
Four A380s were taken by Emirates, three by Singapore Airlines and one by Qatar Airways.
Airbus needs to deliver an average of around 100 aircraft for each of the three remaining months of 2018 in order to meet its target of 800.
Its order activity for September remained limited to single-aisle business, with a total of 37 aircraft added to the backlog.
Viva Aerobus accounted for most of them, as Airbus formally recorded 25 A321neos for the Mexican carrier, as well as a single A320neo for Oman’s SalamAir. Both orders had been disclosed during the Farnborough air show.
Ten other jets – a mix of A320neos and A321neos – were ordered by Swiss, while a private customer firmed a single A320.
Airbus’s latest backlog data shows that the airframer secured net orders for 256 aircraft over the nine months to 30 September, comprising 198 A320-family jets plus 36 A350s, 14 A380s and eight A330s.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
