Airbus Keeps Lead Over Boeing With More Deliveries, Orders in First Half

Airbus SAS delivered more airliners and won more orders in the first half of the year than in 2010, keeping its lead over Boeing Co. (BA)

Airbus, which has produced the most commercial planes every year since 2003, said today it handed over 258 jets to customers this year through June. That’s eight more than the Toulouse, France-based company delivered in the first six months of 2010. Chicago-based Boeing said it delivered 222 aircraft, unchanged from a year earlier.

Airbus said it secured 640 new orders in the first half after stripping out 137 cancellations. Boeing’s net orders fell to 171, from 177 a year ago, after Etihad Airways, Air Pacific and Gulf Air canceled contracts for 20 of the 787 Dreamliners. Both planemakers have said they are boosting production this year to work off record order backlogs.

Airbus has racked up orders since its December decision to offer the A320neo, a new version of its popular narrow-body jet sporting improved engines that’s due in 2015. Boeing hasn’t decided whether to follow suit with similar changes to its best- selling 737 or to develop an all-new single-aisle jet at the end of the decade.

Boeing said last year that it aimed to reclaim the position of world’s largest planemaker from its European rival this year, as its new, delayed 787 Dreamliner and 747-8 jumbo jet enter service. Both planes are scheduled to be delivered to their first customers by September.

Boeing expects to deliver 485 to 500 aircraft this year, up from 462 last year. The company shipped 118 planes in the second quarter, four more than a year ago, making up for fewer deliveries in the first quarter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Susanna Ray in Seattle at sray7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net

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