Airbus is closing in on a historic milestone as its A320 family of jets is set to edge past Boeing’s 737 lineup as the most widely delivered passenger aircraft ever. According to the data from aviation analytics firm Cirium, cited by Bloomberg, show the European plane maker narrowing a decades-long gap in the industry’s fiercest rivalry.
Introduced to take on Boeing’s long-reigning 737, the A320 has spent almost forty years building its presence in the skies. By early August, Airbus was only 20 planes short of Boeing’s total, with 12,155 A320-family jets delivered, Cirium data shows. At the current delivery rate, Airbus is expected to erase that gap as soon as September.
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Cirium Ascend Consultancy’s Max Kingsley-Jones pointed out in a LinkedIn post that Boeing has shipped 12,175 737s since Lufthansa first put the -100 into service in December 1967. Airbus entered the game later, with Air France receiving the first A320-100 in March 1988, but has since delivered 12,155 aircraft in the series.
Jones stated in a LinkedIn post, “When I saw the first A320 in flight-test in Toulouse back in April 1987 (pictured), Boeing had already shipped in excess of 1,300 737s and was transitioning production from the original JT8D-powered 737-200 to the new-gen 737-300/400/500 equipped with the CFM56. The gamble Airbus made with its ‘electric jet’ around advanced technology gave Europe the best chance of genuinely challenging the dominant U.S. OEMs. But did anyone back then expect it could become number one – and on such high production volumes? I certainly didn’t, and nor probably did Airbus Industries…”
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The Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families together make up close to half of the world’s commercial narrowbody fleet. When Airbus entered the market with the A320 in 1988, Boeing already had a commanding lead with about 1,500 aircraft in service. But Airbus shifted the momentum years later by introducing the “neo” version, the first in this category to feature new-generation, fuel-saving engines, a move that quickly won over airlines looking to cut costs.
Boeing tried to answer the challenge with the 737 MAX, reworking its older design to handle larger engines but the model’s future was clouded by two deadly crashes that shook confidence worldwide. Airbus, meanwhile, had set its A320 apart from the start with innovations like digital fly-by-wire controls and a side-stick in place of the traditional yoke. These upgrades not only lightened the aircraft but also gave pilots more space, better visibility, and a cockpit that felt modern and intuitive.