April Banks/Rolls-Royce plc via Getty Images
- Since the 1960s, the Boeing 737 has ruled the skies.
- But this week, it was overtaken by the Airbus A320 as the most popular plane in commercial aviation.
- Airbus has now delivered 12,260 A320s to airlines, one more than the 737.
If you’ve ever taken a short-haul flight, you’ve likely flown on a Boeing 737.
The near-ubiquitous 737 has long been the world’s most popular plane, but this week, it lost that crown, according to data from the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Step forward the Airbus A320.
Almost four decades after its introduction, the A320 has overtaken its transatlantic rival.
When Flynas, a Saudi budget airline, took delivery of a new A320 on Tuesday, it was the 12,260th bought by an airline.
Meanwhile, Cirium’s data shows that Boeing has delivered 12,259 737s since the type was introduced in 1967.
The narrow-body jets are the primary cash cows for their respective manufacturers. They act as workhorses for airlines, typically flying to multiple destinations a day.
Technological advancements in their latest iterations, the A320neo and 737 Max, have only compounded their attractiveness to airlines. Improved fuel efficiency has lowered operating costs, while an expanded range has enabled transatlantic flights.
Airbus taking over the pole position marks a significant milestone in the battle between the world’s two main planemakers.
It was founded in 1970 as France, Germany, and the UK came together to better compete with the American aircraft companies that dominated the industry.
But it had muted success until launching the A320 in 1987, thanks to its use of fly-by-wire technology.
This replaces mechanical flight controls with computer-controlled systems that process the pilots’ inputs, and had previously only been used on military aircraft and Concorde.
But overtaking the 737 is arguably more due to Boeing’s recent problems.
Deliveries by Boeing slowed massively after the 737 Max was grounded following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Boeing was fined $2.5 billion after admitting it had misled regulators about the importance of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, a flight-stabilizing feature that was implicated in the crashes.
Then, in 2024, a panel came off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max mid-flight, and investigators found the plane left Boeing’s factory missing key bolts.
The Federal Aviation Administration capped Boeing’s production of the type, and the company is working on receiving permission to increase the limit.
Last month, Airbus delivered 57 A320s, compared to Boeing’s 43 737s, according to Cirium.
Boeing and Airbus did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
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