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Airbus (AIR) delivered more than twice as many commercial planes as rival Boeing (BA) in 2024, as the latter struggled amid a flurry of controversies and technical issues.
Boeing delivered 57 commercial aircraftin the fourth quarter of last year, and 348 for the entire year, the Virginia-based plane manufacturer reported Tuesday. That’s down from a total of 611 deliveries in 2023.
Shares of Boeing sunk 2% in mid-day trading Tuesday.
That gave French competitor Airbus a widened lead in commercial deliveries. The company reported last week that it delivered 766 commercial aircraft in 2024 — a 4% year-over-year increase and the most since 2019.
“We won key customer decisions with most important customers and saw phenomenal momentum for our widebody orderbook, complementing our leading position in the single aisle market,” Christian Scherer, CEO of the commercial aircraft unit at Airbus, said in a statement last week.
Boeing has been plagued by issues since the blowout of a door plug on one of its 737 Max 9 last January. In the aftermath of the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration mandated that Boeing slow down its production of planes, capping how many of the model the company can make to just 38 per month.
Last quarter, Boeing made 36 737 planes. But leadership has reportedly been telling suppliers that it will be “aggressive” in hitting maximum production speed of the model by summer, Aviation news site The Air Current reported.
On top of the FAA speed limit, which has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in scrutiny and boots-on-the-ground inspections for safety and quality-control issues, 737 Max production crawled to a halt during a nearly two-months-long strike by the company’s union-represented machinists as they worked out a new collective bargaining agreement.
Boeing said it will provide more detailed fourth-quarter financial results on Jan. 28.
— Melvin Backman contributed to this article.