Airbus delivers just 19 aircraft in January 2026
February 6, 2026
Airbus has kicked off 2026 with one of its worst delivery months since the height of the COVID pandemic.
It delivered just `19 aircraft in January, a far cry from the December push when 10 aircraft were handed over in just one day.
In fact, the planemaker didn’t hand over a single jet until 7 January, and then didn’t hand over another one for another week beyond that.
Historically, January has often been a quieter month for deliveries. 2025 saw 25 aircraft delivered to 17 customers, and other Januaries have been of a similar metric, with 20 deliveries in 2023 and 25 in 2025.
However, 19 aircraft is a particularly slow month for Airbus, and almost on par with its worst delivery month in history, April 2020, when the pandemic caused borders to snap shut.
Airbus delivers 18 narrowbody aircraft in January 2026
Airbus made the first delivery of 2026 on 7 January, handing over an Airbus A321neo to Qantas for Jetstar Airways. This was the first of 10 A321neos to be handed over in the month, by far its most delivered type.
Other A321neo recipients included two for Wizz Air, Turkish and United Airlines, as well as single jets for Aer Lingus, VietJet and United Airlines.
Five A320neos were handed over, one each to Frontier, Royal Jordanian, Hainan, Condor and IndiGo (its first XLR).
Alongisde these, three A220 aircraft were delivered to three customers – Air France, Air Canada and Breeze.
Just one widebody delivery for Airbus in January 2026
Just one solitary widebody was handed over last month, and it was an A350-900, which went to the Lufthansa Group for SWISS.
The aircraft was delivered on 30 January, marking the second A350 for the airline and the first in the classic livery. Its first A350 features the ‘wanderlust’ livery, and was delivered in October 2025.
Swiss has named its second A350 Delémont and plans to make its inaugural flight with the aircraft on 23 February from Zurich to Montreal.
Why was January such a slow delivery month for Airbus?
Much of the slowdown in January is something of a hangover from a very busy end to December. Airbus made an extraordinary push to deliver aircraft before the end of 2025, handing over a staggering 136 aircraft in December.
The delivery cadence suggests Airbus workers may have taken some much-needed downtime in the first days of January, only really resuming the delivery push from the middle of the month onwards.
Nevertheless, Airbus still gave a little push to its January deliveries, handing over eight aircraft in the last couple of days of the month.
Airbus has not formally announced a delivery target for 2026, although analysts are pitching its capacity at some 900+ aircraft for the year.
Airbus needs to get close to that if it is going to achieve its stated goal of reaching rate 75 for the A320neo family in 2027.
Airbus orders in January were slow too
In total, Airbus received orders for 49 aircraft in January from five customers.
Within that orderbook, almost all are for the A320neo family, with the A320neo holding the bulk of the numbers.
This was largely down to a significant order from Spring Airlines of 24 A320neo and 6 A321neo. Also included are 10 aircraft for the IAG Group and eight A321neos for undisclosed customers.
Just one widebody was ordered in the month – a single A330-900 for Air Algerie.
Featured image: Airbus
