Looking back to the Paris air show in 2023 it can be seen evermore as a one in a lifetime event. A unique event for aviation enthusiasts and all the more for aircraft manufacturers. The sheer volume of orders placed in that one week won’t come around again anytime soon. That’s why 2024 was a year of return to normality for aircraft manufacturers, among which Airbus. Let’s breakdown what their 2024 looked like in terms of orders and deliveries.
Back To Normality – An Overall Successful 2024 For Airbus
As mentioned above, it was unthinkable that Airbus could achieve another year as 2023. A year ago in its yearly recap Airbus had announced a total of 2094 aircraft orders. That was the result of covid induced repressed demand coming afloat all together in one go. Airlines in rapidly growing markets also placed their orders and therefore an all time high order volume was achieved. The past 12 months however, have brought airbus back down to a more normal baseline.
What that means is that Airbus landed on an 826 order figure for the entirety of 2024. Deliveries, which hadn’t spiked as orders had, grew by 4% over 2023 ending up at 766 over 735 from the prior year. More significant growth was achieved in regard to the A321neo deliveries. Airbus grew the number of A321s delivered by a remarkable 14%, all while Boeing has had a terrible year with its 737 MAX family of narrow body aircraft.
Finally, I’d say unsurprisingly, 60% of Airbus deliveries in 2024 were A321neo planes. I find that quite unsurprising as the A321 in its neo variants has become an airline favorite around the globe. Particularly the new LR and XLR variants are opening new possibilities that airlines had never been able to consider before.

Some Strategic Wins For Airbus in 2024
Airbus along with achieving positive figures in its deliveries and orders it also achieved some strategic wins in terms of customers it won over. Starting from the A330neo family which hasn’t exactly blown us away with its sales figures since being launched. The aircraft has struggled to keep up with its much more successful bigger brother the A350. However in 2024 the A330neo project received orders from important clients such as:
- Cathay Pacific
- Vietjet
- Virgin Atlantic
The A350 continued to perform well with new orders coming in from airlines such as Delta, IndiGo, Korean Air and Sturlux in the freighter version. Another significant milestone for Airbus is definitely the delivery of the first Airbus A350 to Emirates.

With One Final Big Blow
There was one big blow, however, served to Airbus just as the year was coming to an end. Airbus exclusive operator, and major low-cost carrier, Pegasus jumped ship. The Turkish carrier decided to renovate its fleet with Boeing planes and not Airbus. It placed a massive order of up to 200 planes which must have left Airbus a little sore and sour.