October 2025 – First Flights & Deliveries

Another month behind us and only two months to the year's end. 2025 is proving to be very interesting for the commercial aerospace industry: some disappointments and some surprises. If you're not a subscriber, use this link for a data visualization to draw your own conclusions. For subscribers, read on for our review of the four big OEMs through October. Let's restate that we define a delivery when the aircraft goes to its home base to start working. The OEMs define a delivery as a "contractual delivery". So Airbus (and the other OEMs) could hit targets by using contractual rather than factual deliveries. Creative accounting is not a new thing in the aerospace industry. Airbus - 2025 is Mission Impossible Airbus set itself a target of 820 deliveries. Here's our tracking, including the first November deliveries. Airbus has achieved 69% of its YTD target. There are 254 deliveries to go. We think this is Mission Impossible. [caption id="attachment_128660" align="aligncenter" width="580"] AirInsight[/caption] Where are the bottlenecks? These tables list aircraft that have had a first flight but remain undelivered. There are 70 single aisles in inventory. That's approximately a month of target production waiting to go. [caption id="attachment_128662" align="aligncenter" width="489"] AirInsight[/caption] For twin aisles, there are 10 in inventory, of which eight are A350s and two are A330s—so not much of a bottleneck there. Boeing - the 2025 surprise This table lists YTD deliveries. Yes, Boeing is working off a lower base and lower expectations. But they have done well to beat expectations and move that base. We expect Boeing to exceed 500 deliveries—perhaps as high as 575. Having won the FAA's confidence, the MAX program is getting accelerated. [caption id="attachment_128661" align="aligncenter" width="509"] AirInsight[/caption] Boeing is fortunate to have its military and freighter business stable and productive. But the key program to watch is the MAX. Take a look at the following table for details. The yellow columns show steady progress in reducing the average number of days between the first flight and delivery. The spikes in the column for MAX 8s are Chinese delayed deliveries that are so late that the average number spikes. A good proxy for Renton's improving efficiency is the MAX 9, which shows a steady pace, although there has been some spikiness. The total number should read average. Boeing's freighter programs are mature, and the MAX 9 delivers at the same average pace. The 787 program is also working through delays from the FAA and seat suppliers. Boeing delivered a 787-10 to TAAG in October, which was initially intended for Vietnam Airlines and then used as a Boeing Eco Demonstrator. Boeing's ability to redirect these delayed deliveries is impressive. They probably come with steep discounts. A delivery creates a long tail of spares that helps recover lost cash flow. So, correctly, Boeing will do what it must to get that cash flow running. [caption id="attachment_128670" align="aligncenter" width="477"] AirInsight[/caption] COMAC - 2025 disappointment COMAC set a high target for the year. It was a target unlikely to be met, and then along came geopolitics to provide a perfect excuse. The tables below give the context. [caption id="attachment_128672" align="aligncenter" width="580"] AirInsight[/caption] There was no way COMAC was going to hit 75 deliveries, even 50 was a bridge too far. COMAC's production is, to be polite, tepid. That means deliveries follow along. China's airlines sitting on over 1,000 C909 orders must be gnashing their teeth in frustration. Forced into these deals, they must wait and say nothing. There's no Michael O'Leary or Akbar in China to champion the industry's case. CAAC has to navigate geopolitics, play Airbus and Boeing off against each other for orders, and approve delayed deliveries. Central control provides virtually no flexibility, and pivoting looks like reacting to the market rather than leading it. EMBRAER - another 2025 surprise At the end of 3Q25, Embraer’s Commercial Aviation backlog stood at $15.2 billion, up ~37% year-on-year. 2025 has been very good to Embraer. Whereas the E175 has usually been the program that boosted volumes, this year has seen the E195-E2 start to shine. Not only winning good deals (it also lost a few) but, crucially, winning new customers for that program. Probably the flagship deal is US-based Avelo's order of 50. This breaks into the US market, and any success will be copied. Embraer's first flight data is nearly impossible to track because they change the hex number on test flights. So our focus here is on deliveries. [caption id="attachment_128682" align="aligncenter" width="580"] AirInsight[/caption] We highlighted the 2025 numbers and, please notice, that Embraer is delivering more E2s than E175 YTD. This has not happened before. This indicates that the US regional market is slowing, with significant consequences for the broader US market. Why rush to buy a 20-year-old aircraft (even tweaked)? US regionals are consolidating, and there's no urgency to take any radical action. Besides, there's some promising new technology on the horizon. For Embraer, this isn't great news. But its E2 program is now, at last, coming into its own. And the E2 is likely to be more profitable. Besides, Embraer is also seeing its KC-390 program pick up momentum. Embraer's future is upmarket.

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