The evolution of the airplane in its first 100 years has been extraordinary and has profoundly altered all our lives.

But what of the future? Has the pace of innovation slowed to a crawl? Can it not be revived?

The allure of enhanced aviation technology remains, but is Boeing willing to invest the money and take the risks to develop another revolutionary step forward in air transportation?

Where is Boeing Going? Part 5 :  Boeing's Planes - Key Facts and Figures
	A 2000 NASA sketch of a Blended Wing Body plane. Many industry watchers believe this developing such a radical new type of plane presents as Boeing's best strategy for the future. Part 5 of a 5 part series - click for Parts  One  Two  Three  Four  Five

Here is some interesting information and 'facts and figures' that provides a quantitative background to our largely qualitative analysis in the first four parts of the series on Boeing.

This information is updated on a regular basis.

Chart 1 : Comparable Plane Performance

The break in these lines shows the change from propeller to jet powered planes.

There was fairly clear and steady progress until the jet age, but since that time, new plane designs were not based simply on 'bigger/better/faster' but instead on segmenting the market into different types of plane.

The range line has continued to increase, but the speed line has stayed flat.

Table 1 : Source Data for Chart 1
 

This table is a simplistic attempt to portray the evolution of Boeing's entire and broad product range. It reports only the range and passenger carrying capacities of the launch model of each series. Subsequent new models are likely to have quite different characteristics, carrying more (or fewer) passengers and for a greater (or lesser) distance.

Table 2 : Comparative Jet Plane Developments
 

This table generally shows the year that each plane flew for the first time commercially (FCF). Occasionally, it may also show the year the plane flew for the first time (FF).

Launch models of new product lines are shown in bold. Derivative models are not bolded.

Note that we are not considering the A318, A319, and A321 as new model planes, but instead consider them all as part of the A320 family.

Table 3 : Comparative annual deliveries of planes
 

At the end of 2003, Boeing had approximately 1100 planes on order. Airbus had 1500.  At the end of 2005, Boeing had 1809 planes on order and Airbus 2177.  At the end of 2006, Airbus had 2,533 planes on order.  At the end of 2007, Airbus had 3,421 planes on order and Boeing had 3,400 planes on order.  At the end of 2011, Boeing had 3,771 planes on order and Airbus had 4,437.  At the end of 2013, Boeing had 5,080 orders (3,680 for the 737, 916 for the 787, 380 for the 777, 55 for the 747 and 49 for the 767) and Airbus had 5559 orders in its backlog.  At the end of 2014, Airbus had a backlog of 6386 planes - about nine years of production.

At the end of 2016, Boeing's backlog was 5,715 planes on order, and Airbus had 6,874 planes on order.

At the end of 2017, Airbus had a backlog of 7,256 planes and 7577 at the end of 2018.

At the end of 2019, Airbus counted 7482 planes in its order backlog, and Boeing had 5406.

At the end of 2020, Airbus had 7,184 planes in backlog, and Boeing had 4,223.

Table 4 : Comparative annual orders for planes
 

Counting orders is as much an art as a science, because each year sees a mix of 'firm' orders, provisional orders, letters of intent, and options being secured.  Plus, some options and other non-firm orders convert to firm orders, and even some firm orders are cancelled.  And an airline might change an order for one type of plane to an order for a different type of plane, or might give/sell its place in line for future deliveries to another airline.

Some orders get delayed so repeatedly as to be meaningless (think Virgin Atlantic and its A380 orders) and other orders are clearly never going to occur because the airline in question lacks the financial strength to survive and pay for the planes when they start to be delivered.

Making a consistent determination from this morass of order-type activity into what actually represents real, definite, and certain new business is very difficult, and there is every chance that different sources will record different numbers.  Treat the numbers in the table above with caution.

It is also worth noting that both the preceding two tables do not distinguish between small planes and large planes, and so the numbers of planes does not directly match the dollar values.  Should a 737 order/delivery be equated with a 747 delivery; a 319 with a 380?  For example, in 2005, Boeing's 1029 orders represented a list price total of about $116 billion, whereas Airbus' 1111 orders represented about $96 billion.  This was because Boeing's orders in 2005 were more strongly skewed to larger plane types while Airbus' orders were more strongly skewed to smaller plane types.

Note also that for some time Airbus did not disclose net new orders (although it does now), so for some past years this information has been calculated and derived from other information they release.

Who is the Largest Airplane Manufacturer?

The definition of 'who is the largest aircraft manufacturer' is open to some debate and is surprisingly difficult to establish! Six measures could be used :

• The company with the most planes in current service - this suffers from tracking historical past sales rather than present and future sales

• Annual sales - unfortunately, because 'sales' typically occur up to five years before delivery, the reality of a sale can vary enormously between when it is first recorded and the plane is finally delivered

• Annual deliveries - this is a good measure - the number of planes actually delivered in a year. But should all planes be counted with equal measure - for example, an A380 costs almost five times a small 737! Even this measure has some limitations

• Dollar value of annual deliveries - this would be a useful measure, but neither Boeing nor Airbus wish to disclose the exact nature of the discounts they give to customers. List prices can be discounted as much as 30% and sometimes more, so it can be hard to establish the actual dollar value of planes delivered each year.

• Corporate turnover - this may include all sorts of income sources such as spare part sales, maintenance, and training, in addition to basic airline sales

• Forward orders - due to the rather subjective nature of what is a sale, and the difference in importance between an order for a big/expensive plane and a small/inexpensive plane, this too is a less than fully accurate measure

General Notes

For additional information about plane types from all manufacturers, visit our page of data on airplane types.

That page also contains notes about how the information was gathered and the inherent limitations in accuracy of the information displayed.

Read more in the rest of this five part series

Part 1 :  Boeing's early years

Part 2 :  Boeing's best years

Part 3 :  Boeing in decline

Part 4 :  Does Boeing have a future

Part 5 :  Key facts and figures about Boeing, its planes, and its competition
 

If you liked this, you might also enjoy our multi-part series 'Airbus Fires the First Shot in the New A320/737 War with Boeing'.

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Originally published 26 Dec 2003, last update 30 May 2021

You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.