AT A GLANCE
This week: Airbus is sitting on a backlog of more than 7,000 A320neo family aircraft. It delivered 607 of them in 2025. The math is almost identical to Boeing's.
And it's hitting the airlines that can least afford it. Wizz Air just deferred 88 deliveries to FY 2033 and shelved its 500-aircraft plan. Ryanair lowered its 2026 passenger target by 5 million.
The narrative says airlines escaping Boeing's mess are running to safety at Toulouse. The numbers say there is no safety. Just a longer queue.
5-MINUTES READ
Before we dive in, subscribe to get a piece of The Departure Times in your inbox every week.
THE NUMBER
7,000
Airbus A320neo family backlog, as of Q1 2026
Airbus delivered 607 A320 family aircraft in 2025 - its full-year output across the entire family. At that rate, the current backlog clears in roughly 11 to 12 years. And the backlog grew over the first three months of 2026, not the other way around. Airlines ordering today are queueing for delivery slots in the mid-2030s.
For context: Boeing has 4,845 unfilled MAX orders and is producing 38 per month. Airbus has more than 7,000 unfilled A320neo orders and is producing roughly 50 per month. Both queues clear in the same decade.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORY
Airbus has the same problem…
Two weeks ago I covered Boeing's production crisis in The Departure Times. Issue #11 walked through the 4,845 unfilled MAX orders, FAA's reinstated production cap, and the new Everett line. The conclusion was that airlines can't wait that long, and Airbus knows it.
Well… that conclusion was half right.
Airbus knows it. What's getting less attention is that Airbus has the same problem: different shape, different continent, same outcome.
The A320neo family backlog is now over 7,000 aircraft. Total orders have crossed 11,800 since the program launched. Airbus delivered 607 A320 family aircraft in 2025. At that rate, the current backlog stretches to roughly 11.5 years. Airbus wants to hit a production rate of 75 per month. But it hasn't. Pratt & Whitney engine availability is the most-cited reason. It is not the only one.
Airbus's total commercial backlog crossed 9,031 aircraft in March 2026. In one month it took 331 gross orders. Most went to lessors and Chinese carriers. The backlog isn't shrinking. It's still growing.
When the industry talks about airlines "switching to Airbus" because of Boeing's troubles, what's actually happening is a queueing problem moving from one queue to another. The queue at Toulouse is just longer.
THE ANGLE
The airlines that built their model on growth are finding out what happens when the growth stops
The carriers that get hurt most are the ones that need fleet expansion to make their economics work. That's a short list, and it's mostly LCCs.
Wizz Air is the cleanest example. Their “Wizz 500” strategy aims to build a 500-aircraft fleet by 2030. They are half-way there but it’s a huge question mark if they can reach it in less than 4 years.
They deferred 88 A320neo family deliveries from this decade to FY 2033. It also converted 36 of its 47 A321XLR orders to standard A321neos. The fleet target dropped from 380 by March 2028 to 305. That is a 75-aircraft revision in a single planning cycle.
Wizz Air also has roughly 40 aircraft on the ground at any given time because of Pratt & Whitney engine inspections - about 20% of its A320neo fleet. The deferral isn't ambition meeting reality. It's an LCC with a balance sheet trying to survive a multi-year fleet capacity gap.
Ryanair has handled it differently but is solving the same problem. The MAX 10 - which Michael O'Leary needed in service by 2026 to hit his 300-million-passenger target by 2034 - is still uncertified. Ryanair's first 15 MAX 10s have slipped to spring 2027. The airline lowered its FY26 passenger target by 5 million and is now growing at 3 percent against a long-run target of 6 to 7 percent. To absorb the gap, Ryanair has spent $200 million retrofitting older 737-800s to keep them flying longer. That's not a fleet plan. It's a stalling tactic with capex attached.
Both airlines made commitments to financial markets, to bond holders, and to airports based on aircraft arriving on a schedule. Both schedules now run several years late.
This matters more for LCCs than for legacy carriers because the LCC model depends on three things:
low unit costs,
high aircraft utilization, and
continuous capacity expansion to spread fixed costs across more seats.
Take away the third leg and the first two get harder. Older aircraft are more expensive to operate. Routes can't be added at the planned pace. Crew and base expansion plans get rewritten. The cost gap to legacy carriers narrows.
For full-service carriers the same delays are inconvenient. For LCCs they are existential to the growth thesis.
The unit nobody talks about that benefits from this: lessors. AerCap booked 100 A320neos from Airbus in March. Air Lease and SMBC are doing similar deals. When airlines can't get deliveries directly, they go to lessors. That gives lessors pricing power they didn't have five years ago. The OEM backlog crisis is quietly transferring fleet ownership from airlines to lessor balance sheets.
That shift will outlast the production constraints.
QUICK HITS
🔴 HIGH
Airbus opened a second final assembly line in Tianjin, China in March 2026. Its second new FAL in a single month. While Airbus is ramping up for real but unless they solve the constraint around engine supply, fuselage panels, cabin equipment, among others, adding lines will not fix what is actually broken.
🟡 WATCH
Spirit Airlines reduced its A321neo fleet through its second Chapter 11 in less than a year, citing GTF engine groundings. Spirit isn't a one-off. It's the leading edge of LCCs that ordered into the boom and can't survive the delivery gap. Watch which European carriers join in 2026 and 2027…
🟡 WATCH
Wizz Air is moving toward an all-A321neo fleet by FY 2033, withdrawing its older A321s and most A320s by fiscal 2029. The bet is that fleet simplification cuts unit costs enough to offset slower growth. It's the right move given the constraints. But it concedes the Wizz 500 vision may be dead.
🟢 CONTEXT
Airbus booked 398 net orders in the first quarter of 2026. Boeing booked far fewer. The narrative is that Airbus is winning. The reality is that Airbus is taking orders it cannot deliver this decade. Order share is a vanity metric when the queue is already 11 years deep.
WORTH READING
Aviation Today: Airbus on Top, Under Pressure: The A320neo Boom Hits Its Limits
Useful framing on the Airbus backlog as a structural problem rather than a temporary one.
Seeking Alpha: FAA sees no current roadblocks to Boeing Max 7, Max 10 approval in 2026
This is a development specifically for Mr. O’Leary - who is not a subscriber yet so please forward it to him.
Forecast International: Airbus and Boeing March 2026 Orders and Deliveries
The numbers that anchor most of this issue. Useful as a primary reference for the backlog math.
The shorthand explanation in the trade press is that Boeing's loss is Airbus's gain. That's true at the order book level. It is not true at the fleet planning level. Two of Europe's three largest LCCs have rewritten their 2030 plans in the last six months. Wizz seems to be killing (or at least delaying) its 500-aircraft target. Ryanair lowered passenger growth. The stories get covered as separate items. They are the same story. Both airlines are revising downward because neither OEM can deliver what was sold.
The carriers that built their model on continuous growth are now competing for delivery slots inside backlogs that already extend to the mid-2030s. The lessors are taking the slack. The legacy carriers can absorb the delay with less damage. The LCCs can't.
That is the real shape of the duopoly's production crisis. It has nothing to do with which OEM is winning. It has to do with which airlines can survive 5 to 7 years of constrained fleet growth and which ones can't.
Hit reply and tell me: if you work at an LCC or for a lessor, what does your fleet plan for 2027 to 2030 actually look like compared to what was committed two years ago? I am interested in the gap between the public commitment and the operational planning.
P.S. If someone in your network would find this useful, forward it to them. That's how The Departure Times can grow.
Thanks for being here.
See you next week!
Máté