In a milestone for European aviation history, Europe’s Airbus’s A320 family of planes overtook Boeing’s 737 to become the most-delivered airplane in history. The moment occurred with the delivery of an A320neo to Saudi carrier Flynas, bringing total A320 deliveries to 12,260. This is according to benchmark data from UK-based aviation analytics firm Cirium and tracked by leading aircraft supply analyst Rob Morris and as reported by the best travel journalist in the business – Simon Calder in The Independent.
These are planes that everyone who has travelled a lot has spent a lot of time in, but given that the A320 was only launched in 1988, whereas the 737 dates back to 1965. Further, the largest airline in Europe, Ryanair, and I’s U.S. equivalent, Southwestern, have always been steadfastly opposed to using the A320 and have vast 737 fleets.
It would have been unimaginable in the 1990s that the A320 family would prove to be such a success, but is a very good plane, and it’s more modern design with a fuselage higher up enables the engines to be slung under the wing. This single most prominent design difference with the 737 is what led to one of the most difficult periods for Boeng recently as the source of the whole 737 Max problem and the two crashes with tragic loss of life was caused by the difficultly of where to place modern large engines on a plane where the wings sit so close to the ground. An which, I should be clear, has now been fixed.
In an oddly symbolic way, the A320 has been built in the assembly hall deserted by Concorde’s short-lived production run, and recently expanded into space vacated by the discontinued A380 – which is the reverse situtation, the A380 being a truly amazing plane that was a commercial flop. Airbus also produces the A320 family in North American and plans to expand its output in both the U.S. and China.
But that is to take nothing away from Airbus, which is already the world’s largest planemaker by annual deliveries, and is now the No.1 for cumulative narrow-body deliveries. A quite remarkable achievement and a testament to a truly excellent plane.