Aerospace giant Airbus has retained its position as the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, despite delivering fewer planes than expected in 2022. The company, which has UK bases in Filton, near Bristol, and Broughton, in Wales, delivered 661 commercial aircraft to 84 customers last year - an increase of 8% on 2021.
Airbus blamed the “complexity of the operating environment” for not meeting its expected delivery targets.
However, it still managed to hold off rival Boeing, which delivered 480 planes over the same period - up from 340 deliveries the year before - from the top spot.
Airbus said on Tuesday (January 10) it would continue to “ramp up” production in 2023 to deliver on its “backlog of orders”, which stood at 7,239 aircraft at the end of December 2022.
“I want to thank the teams and our partners for the hard work and the ultimate result,” said Guillaume Faury, Airbus chief executive. “The significant order intake covering all our aircraft families including freighters, reflects the strength and competitiveness of our product line. We continue our ramp-up trajectory to deliver on our backlog.”
Airbus said it secured 1,078 new orders (820 net) across all programmes and market segments in 2022, including several high-profile commitments from some of the world’s leading airlines.
The company's A220 won 127 firm gross new orders, while the A320neo family secured 888 gross new orders. In the widebody segment, Airbus won 63 gross new orders including 19 A330s and 44 A350s, of which 24 were for the newly launched A350F.
In October, Airbus reported €38.1bn (£32.9bn) revenue for the first nine months of the year - up from €35.1bn (£30.3bn) at the same point in 2021. The company also welcomed its largest number of apprentices and graduates since the end of the pandemic in September.
Airbus' 2022 full-year financial results will be announced on February 16, 2023.
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