Airbus Needs 249 Deliveries in Two Months to Hit Record 2026 Goal
Airbus reportedly delivered about 74 jets in October, leaving roughly 249 to hand over in November and December to reach its target of about 870.
Airbus SE, the European aircraft maker, reportedly handed over about 74 commercial jets to customers in October. If that figure holds, the company needs roughly 249 more deliveries in November and December to reach its goal of about 870 aircraft for 2026. That target would be the most planes Airbus has ever delivered in a single year. Meeting it would require a monthly pace far faster than anything the company has managed so far this year.
What happened
Bloomberg News first reported the October figure on Thursday, Nov. 5, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters relayed the report but said it could not immediately verify it. According to Reuters, Airbus said it does not comment ahead of its official monthly orders and deliveries statistics, which were scheduled for release on Friday. The 74 figure should be treated as unofficial until Airbus publishes those numbers.
Zonebourse, a French financial news site, said in a report carried by BFM Bourse that October’s handovers would take Airbus’s 2026 total to nearly 621 aircraft. That leaves about 249 to go, or an average of almost 125 a month over the last two months. October’s reported volume was well short of that rate.
Why it matters
Aircraft makers book most of their revenue and cash when a plane is delivered, not when it is ordered. That makes year-end delivery totals one of the main numbers investors watch at Airbus. The company has the industry’s largest order book: Aerospace Global News, an aviation trade publication, reported that Airbus had 9,310 aircraft on order at the end of September. Those orders are only worth something once the jets leave the factory.
Airbus’s official data show it delivered 72 aircraft in September, bringing its total for the first nine months to 547. That was 7.9% more than the 507 it delivered in the same period of 2025, Aerospace Global News reported. Still, 547 was only about 62.9% of the annual goal. Over the first nine months Airbus averaged about 61 deliveries a month, while the fourth-quarter plan implied close to 108 a month even before October’s numbers came in.
Background
Airbus has a history of a strong finish to the year. In the fourth quarter of 2025 it delivered 286 aircraft, including 136 in December alone, according to Aerospace Global News. Even so, reaching this year’s target would mean beating that fourth-quarter total by 37 planes.
Supply problems have slowed the company’s ramp-up. Engine shortages at Pratt & Whitney, which supplies engines for some A320neo-family jets, have left finished planes waiting on the ground. Aerospace Global News also cited quality issues with some A321neo components and a pause in A330 deliveries in June and July after a tool was found inside an aircraft’s tail section. Reuters reported earlier that about 20 aircraft slipped from the third quarter into the fourth because of production delays. Airbus has cut its delivery forecasts before because of engine shortages and broader supply-chain disruption, Reuters noted.
What comes next
Airbus management has so far stood by its guidance. When the company reported third-quarter results in October, it kept its delivery and production targets unchanged. Chief Executive Guillaume Faury pointed to the stock of aircraft that are already built and awaiting handover. “We have a high level of inventory,” he said, according to Reuters. Lars Wagner, chief executive of Airbus Commercial Aircraft, the group’s airliner division, told Reuters he was “very confident” the company would meet the goal, Aerospace Global News reported.
The main things to watch over the coming weeks include:
- whether Airbus’s official October figures match the roughly 74 deliveries Bloomberg reported;
- the November total, which will show whether the year-end push is gathering speed;
- engine availability from suppliers, the main bottleneck for Airbus’s best-selling A320neo family.
Missing the target would not wipe out orders, but it could push revenue and cash into 2027. Investors are likely to weigh that as they look at Airbus’s longer-term plans to raise A320-family output to between 70 and 75 jets a month by the end of 2027.
