By Mauro Orru


Airbus met its annual plane delivery goal that it recently lowered due to a quality issue with metal panels on hundreds of A320 jets.

The European plane maker said it dispatched 793 commercial aircraft to 91 customers last year, in line with company guidance of about 790 deliveries. The annual figure indicates that Airbus shipped 136 planes in December, the only month for which it hadn't yet disclosed data and generally a busy month for deliveries.

Out of all aircraft shipped last year, Airbus's A320 narrow-body model was by far the most popular, with 607 deliveries, followed by the A220 with 93.

Airbus had initially aimed for roughly 820 deliveries overall in 2025, but decided to lower that target last month after the company discovered a "supplier-quality issue" relating to the thickness of metal panels used to make its A320 line of jets.

The group said in December that the issue had been rectified and all newly produced panels were safe, though affected jets needed to be inspected and a portion of those fixed, a process that delayed some deliveries.

For years, Airbus has been struggling to overcome hurdles in its supply chain that made it difficult to procure engines, cabin equipment and parts from suppliers to assemble its planes and deliver them to customers on schedule. The company was forced to trim its aircraft-delivery goal in 2022 and 2024 because of supply-chain snarls.

The latest issue for Airbus surfaced as rival Boeing appears to be emerging from the worst of its recent turbulence. The group, which has been mired in a series of production challenges in recent years, has made progress in regaining investors' trust.

Boeing's finance chief recently spelled out plans to generate more cash next year as the company ramps up production of its wide-body 787 and narrow-body 737 MAX jets.

Boeing delivered 537 planes and booked 999 net orders by the end of November, the latest month for which the company has disclosed data. Meanwhile, Airbus reported 889 net orders of its aircraft for the whole of 2025, taking its backlog to 8,754 planes at the end of the year.


Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-12-26 1231ET