There was a new engine order book record at the end of December last year. There are now over 30,500 large civil jet engines on firm order. In addition, there were record numbers of widebody engines on firm order.
There is a new aircraft backlog record, a new widebody aircraft backlog record, a new engine order book record and a new widebody engine order book record. 2025 turned out to be quite a year.
There are now 16,371 large commercial jet aircraft on firm backlog order, an all-time record, but only widebody aircraft actually have a gain. 2025 will probably be remembered as the year when demand for widebody aircraft recovered. There was a huge increase in the passenger widebody backlog, up 589 aircraft since the start of the year. The passenger widebody backlog record set at the end of 2014 was broken. Single-aisle aircraft do represent the largest share of the backlog (81.8% at the end of December) but there has been very little change to the single-aisle backlog over the past two years and there are currently slightly fewer on backlog than at the start of last year.
Not only is it the first time that there have been over 30,500 large civil jet engines on firm order, at the end of last year there were over 5,500 widebody engines on firm order, also a record. The total engine order book grew by 684 engines last year but there are currently 278 fewer single-aisle engines on firm order than at the start of 2025, but there are 962 more widebody engines on order.
The 2025 aircraft order intake was the third largest of the last 10 years and rather a long way behind the 2023 order intake. However, there were orders for 728 more aircraft than in 2024, made up of 235 more single-aisles and 493 more widebodies. The total of 869 widebodies ordered in 2025 was the largest number ever ordered in a single year and it was made up of 826 passenger widebodies and 43 freighters. Airbus took the most orders for single-aisle and freighter aircraft last year while Boeing dominated the passenger widebody market with over two thirds of all orders.
The industry probably didn’t see a new engine order book record coming. The first time the order book increased last year was in May (+182 engines) and it went up again in June (+232 engines). It dropped by each month from July to October (-502 engines in that period) and then there was an end of year surge in engine orders; 748 in November and a further 722 in December. The November intake was made up of 312 single-aisle and 436 widebody engines. The December intake was made up of 518 single-aisle and 204 widebody engines. These volume orders pushed the firm engine order book up in both months; by 506 engines in November and by a further 450 in December.
The widebody engine order book grew by an unprecedented 406 engines in November, breaking the long-standing record of 5,280 engines set in April 2015. There have been some very big increases in the single-aisle engine order book in the past but in the widebody engine segment there has never been anything like this. And then, in December, the number of widebody engines on firm order grew by a further 182 engines taking the total number on firm order to 5,578. That is a new record.
It was not entirely as though a large number of widebody aircraft were ordered at the end of last year. What happened was that engines were ordered for previously ordered aircraft that did not have engine selections, typically the 787. By the end of the year the three largest engine programs had the three largest engine order book gains. The GEnx order book increased by 338 engines, the GE9X by 286 engines and the Trent XWB by 256 engines. It was a pretty good year for the widebody engine companies.
There were 283 more aircraft deliveries last year than in 2024. The single-aisle delivery increase was 209 aircraft and the widebody increase was 74 aircraft. Boeing delivered 252 more aircraft last year while Airbus delivered 27 more and COMAC delivered four more.
With regard to 2025 engine installs, the single-aisle total last year was the largest annual total since 2018 which was the record year. It was also the second largest annual total ever which shows that there has been quite some recovery in this segment. The widebody total was the largest annual total since 2019 but widebody install numbers still have not got back to the sort of levels seen in the years before 2020. One statistic that illustrates how low widebody engine installs have been since 2020 is that the total number in the last six years (2,422) is less than half the total number in the six years to the end of 2019 (when there were 5,162 widebody installs).