Airbus vs Boeing: August numbers and the race to hit 2025 delivery targets
September 11, 2025
Airbus and Boeing have released their monthly orders and deliveries (O&D) figures for August. In numbers alone, Airbus outpaced Boeing for the month, but how close is each manufacturer to their full-year targets?
August aircraft deliveries and YTD Totals
- Airbus delivered 61 aircraft in August, bringing its January–August total to 434. This is about 3% lower than in the same period last year.
- Boeing delivered 57 aircraft in August, raising its January–August total to 385—already surpassing its entire 2024 total of 348 deliveries.
Airbus is slightly behind last year’s pace, while Boeing has recovered ground rapidly. However, Airbus’ deliveries are hampered by supply-chain issues ranging from missing engines to missing seats. Boeing’s delivery momentum is constrained, pending regulatory approvals, which would lift the cap on its production rate of 38 737 MAX per month.
Where Airbus stands on its full-year delivery goals
Airbus has set an annual delivery target of 820 aircraft, with 434 delivered through August, it needs to deliver another 386 aircraft by the end of December. That requires a run rate of 96-97 aircraft per month, which would be a significant increase.
However, Airbus has built up a stock of aircraft that are missing engines, anticipating that engine manufacturers will catch up. The manufacturer reported having 60 “gliders” in its mid-year results.
On Tuesday, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury reaffirmed Airbus’ commitment to meeting its annual target while acknowledging that engines remain a challenge. “As long as we don’t have the engines, we know there is still uncertainty remaining,” Reuters quotes Faury as saying during the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Aerospace Summit in Washington.
Of the engine makers’ progress, Faury said: “We see that they are managing those issues, that they are mostly behind them.”
Overall, Faury added: “We’re still in the same situation… It has slightly improved, but there’s still a lot we need to get from the engine makers between now and let’s say, the end of November.”
Boeing’s full-year delivery targets are more flexible
Boeing has not published a set target of aircraft for the year, preferring instead to focus on stabilising quality and production rates. Analysts have expectations that it will reach 580 aircraft delivered in 2025.
Measured against analyst year-end predictions, Boeing has a shorter gap to fill for 2025, with only 195 more aircraft to deliver, which would require a monthly rate of 49 aircraft.
However, the 38 737 MAX production cap imposed by the FAA after the Alaska Airlines mid-cabin door plug blowout incident could impede its deliveries in the year’s final stretch.
FAA cap on Boeing 737 MAX production rate remains in place
Ahead of his confirmation hearing, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy assured Congress that the Boeing 737 MAX production cap would remain in place until safety criteria are met.
“The cap will be maintained and will be lifted when I, in consultation with the career safety experts at FAA and the Administrator, have confidence that a production increase will not reduce the quality of the aircraft being produced,” Duffy said in written comments submitted to the Senate Commerce Committee.
Earlier this year, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg expressed confidence that Boeing could sustain a monthly production rate of 42 737 MAX aircraft per month and even increase this to 47 by the end of the year.
But the FAA has not yet decided to approve a higher production rate and may not do so in time. On Tuesday, Reuters quotes FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford as saying, “Progress is being made. It may not be as fast perhaps as Boeing would like, but it is as fast as we can reasonably move through the process.”
Bedford added, “This is going to be a bottom-up process—front-line FAA team that’s really on them to make the recommendation of whether they feel like we’ve reached some of the milestones that would warrant any kind of change. None of those recommendations have come up yet. That tells me the work is still ongoing.”
Both planemakers are nearing the final quarter of 2025 under intense pressure. Airbus needs its suppliers to come through while Boeing waits on a green light from Washington. Whether they hit their targets will hinge as much on engine manufacturers and FAA inspectors as on each manufacturer’s assembly lines.
