As Airbus and Boeing head into the Farnborough International Airshow, which opens on July 20, 2026, the mid-year scorecard is already in, and it favors Airbus. Through June 30, the European planemaker logged 886 gross orders and 351 deliveries, against Boeing’s 445 orders and 314 deliveries, according to the monthly figures both companies published on July 14.
The first-half numbers
Airbus reported 886 gross orders for the six months to the end of June and 351 deliveries to 77 customers, according to its orders and deliveries page. Its backlog stood at 9,216 aircraft. Boeing reported 445 gross orders, which fell to 408 after cancellations and conversions, and 314 deliveries, its strongest first half since 2018. Boeing’s commercial backlog ended June at 6,814 aircraft.
The monthly split tells a more even story than the yearly totals suggest. In June alone, Boeing booked 121 orders to Airbus’s 71, its stronger sales month, while Airbus delivered 89 aircraft to Boeing’s 64. Boeing’s June handovers included 42 of its 737 MAX narrowbodies and 13 787 widebodies, first reported by FlightGlobal.
Roughly a decade of work each
Airbus ended June with a 9,216-aircraft backlog and Boeing with 6,814. At current build rates, that is about 10.6 years of production for Airbus and 10.2 for Boeing. The bottleneck for both is how fast they can build, not whether the orders exist.
What the order books actually mean
Headline order tallies are usually quoted gross, meaning every new commitment before anything is removed. Net orders subtract cancellations and conversions, which is why Boeing’s 445 gross became 408 net. It is a real distinction: a splashy order announced one quarter can quietly disappear the next, so the gross figure tends to flatter whichever maker had the busier signing season.
A useful gauge is the book-to-bill ratio, which divides orders by deliveries. Anything above 1 means the backlog is still growing. On a gross basis, Airbus ran near 2.5 in the first half and Boeing near 1.4, so both are filling the order book faster than they empty it. That is the healthy problem the duopoly that dominates airliner production has had for years now: demand outruns supply.
Deliveries, though, are what actually move money, because a jet is not paid for in full until it is handed over to the airline. That is why Boeing’s 314 deliveries matter more than the order gap: it is the clearest sign yet that Boeing’s production is recovering after the crisis that followed the January 2024 door-plug blowout. Airbus’s delivery lead, in turn, reflects a narrowbody line that never stopped ramping.
Both companies are chasing full-year delivery targets in the 800-plus range, and both say the constraint is the supply chain rather than customer appetite. Airbus has guided to around 870 aircraft for 2026. Boeing has not set a public number but is ramping 737 output toward 47 jets a month with FAA backing.
A mid-year snapshot, not a verdict
Order standings can swing on a single large deal, and Farnborough opens on July 20 with widebody and narrowbody campaigns expected across the trade days. A week from now these totals could look very different, so treat the H1 tally as a snapshot rather than a final result.
Sources and references used for research and fact-checking.