Airbus Starts 2026 Badly

Airbus has started 2026 slowly, with just 19 commercial aircraft being delivered to customers in the first 31 days of the calendar year.

The significant downturn follows a strong end to 2025, with the planemaker meeting its revised annual delivery target of 790, achieving three above: 793 delivered to 91 customers globally and 1,000 new gross orders.

But January saw just 19 aircraft delivered to 15 customers, with 49 gross orders, as the business continues to grapple with persistent challenges that are affecting its output levels.

Airbus’ poor performance in January comes as it has yet to release its annual delivery figure, now into the second month of the year. In recent years, it has missed the initial target and, more often than not, reached the revised target.

Airbus Battles Supply Chain Bottlenecks

Airbus’ supply chain woes have been hard to ignore; they are hurting aircraft production, and more often than not, driving lower-than-expected deliveries. These bottlenecks, even in 2026, remain difficult to overcome.

The planemaker has faced fuselage discomfort, seat shortages, engine reliability and availability concerns, among others; these problems are not limited to a single aircraft type or family.

Airbus has repeatedly highlighted how these chronic woes affect its output levels and the persistent obstacles threaten to impact annual, financial and delivery performance.

Across recent years, engine availability has been a key concern, with the likes of Pratt & Whitney not delivering GTF engines for the A320neo and A220 on time, thus affecting output rates and creating gliders, completed jets that cannot be delivered without engines.

These global supply chains can collapse easily, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the inability of many of those close to Airbus to recover fully, thereby fracturing Airbus’ operations.

Production Rate Rises Face Pushbacks

With 19 planes shipped in what is typically a slower month, this figure still represents a further decline from performance across 2025.

Despite this, Airbus remains committed to aggressive production-rate increases across multiple families, including the A320neo, A220, A350, and A330neo.

These planned hikes, including 75 A320neo family jets a month, are part of efforts to match demand and reduces backlogs following years of delays for airline customers.

Some hikes are viewed internally and externally as more critical, such as the A220s planned production increases, which will make the program profitable after years of financial hurdles.

With Avolon, a leading aviation financier and lessor, confirming that planemakers are selling two years’ worth of stock every 12 months, aircraft availability is becoming scarcer by the week, and slots are being snapped up.

As a result, if production increases cannot be achieved, delays will continue to deepen into the 2030s for airlines that have already battled the entirety of the 2020s with fewer aircraft than were forecast.

Airbus has already been forced to push back production rate increases on more than one occasion, and it does not want this to continue into the back end of the 2020s.