On Friday, Singapore Airlines will take delivery of its sixth Airbus A350. That airplane, to be registered 9V-SMF, is also the 10,000th aircraft delivered by Airbus. We take a look at Airbus’ historical deliveries and what’s ahead for the airframer as well as how you can track Airbus aircraft on Flightradar24. All data below is taken from Airbus’ Orders and Deliveries data, current as of 30 September 2016.
In 1974, Airbus delivered its first aircraft to launch customer Air France. The airline took delivery of the A300B2 in May of that year. Since then, Airbus has delivered 9,982 aircraft to 393 customers, operated by 421 different airlines.
The difference between customers and operators is explained by leasing companies, like ILFC or AerCap, purchasing the aircraft from Airbus and then leasing them to airlines.
Airbus’ best selling aircraft is the A320, with 4,320 delivered. Combining all members of the A320 family, including the A318, A319, A320 (and A320neo) and A321, Airbus has delivered 7,256 single-aisle aircraft accounting for 72.6% of total deliveries by the company.
The Airbus Family in Operation (mid-2016)
Orders, Deliveries, and Aircraft in Operation
A look at Airbus’ complete order book shows where the next few thousand aircraft will go. Airbus has 4,812 orders for the New Engine Option (neo) versions of its A320 family. The airframer has 809 orders for its A350XWB. Airbus is also moving towards first flight for its A330neo, scheduled for first flight in 2017.
Tracking Airbus Aircraft
Airbus will deliver aircraft number 10,000 on Friday to Singapore Airlines, but before it does, it will conduct test flights as registration F-WZFD. We have previously written about pre-delivery test flights, but the easiest way to follow Airbus test flights is to set a callsign filter for ‘AIB’ and focus your map over Europe.
It’s easy to track delivered Airbus aircraft on Flightradar24.com and in our mobile apps. In our mobile apps, just set your filters for the particular aircraft or family of aircraft you’re looking for. On the web (or in our flight tracker app as well) use ICAO aircraft type codes to filter for the aircraft you want to follow. Airbus’ newest type, the A350-1000 is type code ‘A35K’. That aircraft is scheduled for first flight before the end of 2016.
