New aircraft and engine backlog records at the end of August.
The aircraft and engine order intakes in August were not particularly large – 162 aircraft and 290 engines – but they were large enough to push the aircraft and engine backlogs to new record highs, above the previous records set in June. This in turn has resulted in new records for the single-aisle aircraft and engine backlogs. The previous single-aisle records were also set in June.
The large commercial jet backlog increased by 74 aircraft in August and now stands at 14,535 aircraft, 73 more than the previous record set in June (the July aircraft backlog was the same as the June backlog). The current figure is 1,010 aircraft larger than at the start of this year and 1,463 aircraft larger than at the start of last year.
The single-aisle aircraft backlog increased by 52 in August and now stands at 12,595 aircraft. This is 807 aircraft larger than at the start of the year and 1,302 aircraft larger than at the start of last year.
Airbus has a new record backlog of 8,024 aircraft. It is the first time ever that the European aircraft manufacturer has had a backlog of over 8,000 aircraft. This should not really be much of a surprise to the industry; after all, Airbus has taken orders for nearly 1,100 aircraft in the last three months which is very nearly three quarters of all aircraft ordered in that time.
The number of large civil jet engines on firm order increased by 156 in August, to a total of 27,800 which is 96 more engines than at the end of June when the previous record was set. There are now 1,982 more engines on order than at the start of this year and 2,712 more on order than at the start of last year.
The number of single-aisle aircraft engines on firm order increased by 110 in August, taking the total to the new record high of 24,094. This beats the previous record set in June by 74 engines and there are now 1,604 more single-aisle engines on firm order than at the start of this year and exactly 2,500 more on order than at the start of last year.
One can easily get carried away by all these numbers but what they simply boil down to are new single-aisle and new total aircraft and engine backlog records. The widebody aircraft and engine backlogs are not new records and are, in fact, far from being new records though there are now 203 more widebody aircraft and 378 more widebody engines on backlog than at the start of 2023, so there has been some improvement there.
There is, of course, another aspect to this which is that if there had been larger production increases this year, the records set in June and again in August might not have been quite so large. The industry still has supply chain issues. Delivery numbers by the end of August have improved each year since 2020 but so far this year there have only been two more aircraft deliveries than by the end of August 2019.