Airbus has warned of the risk of falling behind its delivery target. So far, it is ahead of Boeing

European airplane maker Airbus said it is not sure it can reach the planned production level of its best-selling A320 family of planes. The problem is that engine supplier Pratt & Whitney can't deliver the planned volume of components. So far, Airbus is outpacing U.S. rival Boeing in terms of deliveries, but the latter is ramping up.

"I'm disappointed because we had a good plan to reach a [A320] production rate of up to 75 airplanes [per month] by the end of next year. Now we see that depending on how many engines we end up getting from our friends at Pratt, we may not reach that target," Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said Tuesday, June 9, at an aviation summit in Berlin. Forey's words are quoted by Bloomberg.

The deadline for reaching the goal of 75 planes a month has changed more than once because of supply chain problems in the wake of the pandemic, Bloomberg wrote. The public confrontation between Airbus and Pratt & Whitney, one of its key suppliers, was unusual for an industry that is built on just-in-time delivery of thousands of components, the agency said.

The European aircraft maker expects to deliver a total of about 870 aircraft to customers this year, less than it had previously estimated. At the same time, Forey said Airbus has not recorded any postponements or cancelations of orders by airlines due to the war over Iran and its impact on global energy markets.

Airbus said in February that Pratt & Whitney, a unit of RTX Corporation, could not meet initial commitments to supply engines for A320 narrow-body aircraft because a significant portion of resources were being diverted to servicing airliners already in service.

RTX declined to comment to Bloomberg on Forey's statement. In April, Pratt & Whitney CEO Christopher Calio said the U.S. engine maker would "eventually reach the necessary production volumes."

Also on Tuesday, Boeing, Airbus' U.S. rival, said it delivered 60 airplanes in May, a 33 percent increase over the same month in 2025, Reuters reported. Specifically, the company delivered 51 737 MAX airplanes, the highest number in a month for this popular model since production restarted in December 2024 following a strike, the agency noted.

Nevertheless, Airbus is still ahead of Boeing in terms of delivery rates: it delivered 81 airplanes to customers in May. This is 59% more than in May 2025.

Engines have become one of the most painful problems for the aviation industry, both in terms of reliability and performance, and because of their shortage, Bloomberg writes. In addition, there are growing concerns about the industry's dependence on a limited number of manufacturers, which actually creates a quasi-monopoly situation, the agency notes.

Airbus has already experienced a number of problems with the A320 family of airplanes that have led to production delays. Late last year, the company had to revise its aircraft delivery plan due to defective fuselage panels. Even earlier, the company required urgent software upgrades on about 6,000 A320 aircraft following an airplane incident.

Airbus shares are now 11.4% cheaper than they were at the beginning of 2026. By comparison, Boeing shares lost only 1.2% of their value over the same period.

The most popular recommendation on Airbus shares is to buy: the securities have a total of 17 Buy and Overweight ratings versus nine Hold (advice to hold), FactSet shows. There are no sell recommendations. Boeing shares have 23 Buy, six Hold and one Sell recommendation, MarketWatch data shows.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor