Did Airbus’ year-end delivery sprint of 121 jets get it across the finish line on its 2025 revised target?
January 6, 2026
Forecast International has published its year-end delivery estimates for Airbus and Boeing, showing 121 Airbus deliveries in December 2025. The European planemaker has a tradition of a year-end push, which has helped Airbus meet its delivery goals in previous years and may have accomplished this feat again in 2025.
How December 2025 compares with other Airbus year-end “delivery crunch” months
Airbus has a long-standing pattern of front-loading production and then back-loading customer handovers into the final weeks of the year—partly because deliveries (customer acceptance, paperwork, and handover) are the key metric used to close out annual targets.
Based on industry sources for December tallies since 2019, December 2025 would not set an all-time record, but it is at the high end of Airbus’ year-end delivery numbers.
| Year | December Airbus deliveries | Reliable source / note |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | ~134 (approx.) | AirInsight recap of Airbus’ December 2019 “push” (reported as ~134). Source |
| 2020 | — | Airbus published full-year totals, but December split not consistently cited in mainstream reporting. Airbus orders & deliveries hub |
| 2021 | — | Full-year totals are widely reported, but December figure is less consistently broken out by major outlets. Airbus orders & deliveries hub |
| 2022 | 98 | Forecast International monthly wrap (December 2022 deliveries: 98). Source |
| 2023 | 112 | Forecast International monthly wrap (December 2023 deliveries: 112). Source |
| 2024 | 123 | Forecast International monthly wrap (December 2024 deliveries: 123). Source |
| 2025 | ~121 (estimate) | Forecast International estimate for December 2025 (unofficial month-end tally). Source |
Note: “~” indicates an approximate figure as reported by the cited source; 2025 is explicitly labeled as an estimate/unofficial tally.
Did the year-end push help Airbus hit its 2025 target?
Airbus lowered its original 2025 delivery target from ~820 to ~790 aircraft due to A320-family fuselage panel issues slowed production, disrupting delivery flow.
As of the end of November, Forecast International reported Airbus had delivered a total of 657 aircraft for the year. With a December count of 121, Airbus would have delivered 778 aircraft in 2025, still short of the revised target of “around 790 aircraft.”
As AGN has previously reported, Air Insight’s independent tallies put Airbus’ 2025 delivery figure at 784, close enough to the target to consider it as a win.
But others are more optimistic. Reuters, citing industry sources, reported that Airbus delivered 793 aircraft in 2025, slightly higher than the revised target.
These figures are difficult to pin down until the OEM makes them official. Airbus may still revise its year-end delivery numbers after an audit for late-reporting adjustments. The manufacturer’s interpretation of “around 790” allows a margin of error of 10 to 20 aircraft, which could mean the year-end push got Airbus across the finish line.
The real story in December is the dramatic turnaround in Airbus’ deliveries despite production issues.
Why December deliveries especially mattered to Airbus in 2025
Airbus entered late 2025 needing to prove it could still “land the plane” operationally after the fuselage-panel disruption slowed handovers. Its November deliveries (72) were lower than October’s (78), which left a greater burden on the last month of the year.
Reuters reported that December started relatively light, with about 30 deliveries in the first half of the month, with the back half carrying the rest of the load. Forecast International’s figure suggests that Airbus delivered 91 aircraft in the last two weeks of the year, which would be remarkable given the challenges that forced the OEM to revise its targets.
Whether or not the official figures show that year-end push met the target, it certainly demonstrated Airbus’ production capacity under pressure.
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