A320 Surpasses Boeing 737 in Deliveries

The Airbus A320 became the most numerous airliner in the sky on Tuesday as overall deliveries of the single-aisle profit maker moved past the Boeing 737, the longtime leader in deliveries. The handover of an A320neo to Saudi airline Flynas was the 12,260th of the series since the aircraft first went into service in 1988. By contrast, the 737 began service with Lufthansa in 1967. The A320 was first envisioned in 1984 and was almost canceled several times, usually because of political disputes within the multinational consortium that created the company. The result was unremarkable on the outside but full of high-tech innovation.

The plane was and still is built mostly of composites and was the first airliner with fly-by-wire controls. Most early sales were in Europe, but United Airlines got everyone’s attention with an A320 order in 1992. It continues to fly the type, and other airlines followed suit. That prompted Boeing to respond with new, larger iterations of the 737. Airbus has recently made initial deliveries of long-range versions of the A321, which some airlines are using for transoceanic flights. The XLR version has a range of 4700 nautical miles.