Q3 2026 aircraft deliveries: Airbus has 547 jets out the door and needs about 108 a month to hit 870; Boeing delivered 161. What it means for next summer.
Every airline schedule for next summer rests on a simple question: will the new planes actually show up? The third-quarter delivery numbers from Airbus and Boeing are in, and they give a fairly clear answer — more jets than last year, but nowhere near enough to loosen the squeeze. Here is where Q3 2026 aircraft deliveries stand against each manufacturer’s target, and what that means for capacity in summer 2027.
Airbus handed over 72 aircraft in September, bringing its total for the first nine months of 2026 to 547 — up 8% on the 507 it had delivered by the same point in 2025.
The quarter itself was softer. Airbus reported 351 deliveries for the first half, so the third quarter accounts for 196 — slightly below the 201 of Q3 2025 (507 by September 2025, less 306 in the first half). August was a quiet month at 57.
The problem is the target. Airbus is aiming for about 870 deliveries this year, roughly 10% more than the 793 it managed in 2025. With 547 done, that leaves 323 for October to December — about 108 a month, against an average of roughly 61 a month so far.
That is a steep climb in a single quarter, and the question is whether the supply chain can support it. Reports cite continuing supply-chain trouble, including engine availability and manufacturing quality issues affecting the A321neo. (Engines have been the bottleneck for a while — see why the engine shortage reaches the schedule.) Airbus publishes its nine-month results at the end of October, so we will know shortly whether the 870 target holds.
What is on order is not the issue. Airbus’s backlog stood at 9,310 aircraft at the end of September. The A320 family made up 59 of September’s 72 deliveries, led by the larger A321neo with 37.
Boeing delivered 161 commercial aircraft in the third quarter — almost exactly the 160 of Q3 2025 — and 475 in the first nine months, up from 440 a year earlier.
The 737 is the engine of the recovery: 124 in the quarter and 367 so far this year, against 330 at the same point in 2025. In May, after consulting the US regulator, the FAA, Boeing said it was increasing 737 production, aiming for 47 a month in 2026. The smallest and largest versions, the 737-7 and 737-10, are still waiting for certification; Boeing now expects to start delivering them in 2027.
The 787 Dreamliner is the weak spot. Boeing delivered 22 in Q3 and 62 this year, while chief executive Kelly Ortberg reaffirmed in June a target of 90 to 100 for 2026 — which means 28 to 38 more in the last three months. He also said Boeing had “fallen behind in delivery on engines” earlier in the year. The new 777-9 is still in certification, with first delivery planned for 2027.
Boeing notes that its delivery figures are not final until it reports quarterly results.
Put the two together and the picture is “more, but still not enough.”
Behind all of it sits an order book that will take many years to work through — something we unpacked in how the aircraft backlog is reshaping schedules and saw again at this summer’s Farnborough airshow, where delivery slots, not orders, were the scarce thing.
For schedule planners, a late delivery is not an abstract number: it is a flight in next summer’s timetable that needs a different aircraft, a lower frequency, or no aircraft at all. Seeing those changes clearly from one schedule version to the next is the kind of work SSIM Toolkit is designed for.
Delivery figures are company-reported; Boeing’s are preliminary until it reports quarterly results. Airbus’s Q3 total and monthly averages are our arithmetic from its published half-year and nine-month totals.
Sources
Once every two years the aviation world gathers to buy jets by the hundred. This year Boeing and Airbus mostly said no — not because demand is weak, but because they're sold out for years. The scarce thing at the airshow wasn't a customer. It was a delivery slot.
The winter 2026/27 schedule began on 25 October. Seats are up 2.2% worldwide on fewer extra flights: Italy, Brazil and Spain grow, Germany and Russia shrink.
Airlines are flying at record load factors on a ~3.9% net margin while new aircraft stay scarce. When every seat counts this much, the schedule is where efficiency is won or lost.
