Leeham News and Analysis
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Airbus’ A321neo, A321LR or A321XLR? Part 2.
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By Bjorn Fehrm
October 30, 2025, © Leeham News: We went through the creation of Airbus’s A321 in the first article, and why its initial sales were slow, and why the sales only picked up after the launch of the A320/A321neo models, and how it came to dominate sales and deliveries in the A320 family after COVID.
For an airline, it’s now a matter of what mix of the different A321neo variants to buy. Is there a large penalty to “misuse” an A321LR or XLR on shorter routes, or can a fleet of the more expensive and heavier models be used on shorter routes to cover gaps and increase their daily utilization without a cost penalty?
To get the answer, we look into the different A321neo variants and compare their capacities and operational costs in this article using the Leeham Aircraft Performance and Cost Model, APCM.
Figure 1. The A321neo with the new Cabin Flex door configuration from 2Q2018 deliveries. Source: Airbus.
Summary:
- The Airbus A321neo is the star in the Airbus lineup. It lacks competition for at least another year, and its two margin-rich variants, the A321LR and XLR, the Boeing 737 MAX 10 can’t compete with once it gets certified.
- There are extra costs, however, to operate these more capable types. It means these shouldn’t be “misused” too much on normal routes.
Airbus 3Q2025: Still on target in 2025 – gliders remain, changes in 2026
By Karl Sinclair
Oct 30, 2025, © Leeham News: Airbus (AB) CEO Guillaume Faury is still confident that the commercial aircraft maker can hit this year’s target of 820 aircraft deliveries, despite the snarls it is dealing with in the supply chain.
At the end of 1H2025, Airbus had a whopping 60 aircraft sans moteurs. That number dropped to 32 by the end of the third quarter. Faury says that number will hit zero by year-end.
Engine issues at both GE and Safran, which power the workhorse A320neo family under the CFM International joint venture, put deliveries badly behind schedule. It was revealed today during the earnings call that the snags are distributed about 50/50 across the engine OEMs. Typically, Safran provides the LEAP 1A engines to Airbus for delivery to European and other non-US airlines and lessors. GE provides them to Airbus for delivery to US airlines and lessors.
Through the first nine months of 2025, Airbus delivered 507 aircraft to customers, up from 497 over the same period in 2024. That leaves a whopping 313 aircraft to be delivered over the final quarter, to meet the guidance figures.
Guillaume Faury, CEO, Airbur Group. Source: Airbus.
To put it all into context, if Airbus were to hit its future targeted rate increases, for the next three months, it would produce:
- 75/mo for the A320neo family in 2027 = 225 aircraft
- 12/mo for the A220 family in 2026 (guidance changed from 14/mo) = 36 aircraft
- 12/mo for the A350 family in 2028 = 36 aircraft
- 5/mo for the A330 family in 2029 = 15 aircraft
Airbus would deliver 312 jets to customers, one shy of the target.
It must deliver on those rates, now.
Boeing sees no new single aisle plane until 2040
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By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 27, 2025, © Leeham News: Recent reports that Boeing is working on a new single-aisle aircraft to replace the 737 MAX and a New Midmarket Airplane (NMA), or a version of it, are fundamentally true but vastly overhyped. At a conference in Prague earlier this month, Boeing’s Darren Hulst put a damper on this speculation, but said only that Boeing was “not close” to launching a new airplane.
Concept of the Boeing New Midmarket Aircraft. Credit: Leeham News.
Boeing hasn’t publicly put any dates on entries into service of its new airplanes, whatever these may be. But internally, Boeing is of the belief that its 737 replacement won’t enter service before 2040.
This doesn’t mean that Boeing’s Product Development unit isn’t working on new airplanes in the background. The company must be ready to respond in case some other OEM introduces a new airplane before then.
Airbus’ CEO Guillaume Faury publicly said several times that it will introduce a replacement for the A320neo in 2038. But there are some within Airbus who dispute this, concluding that new technology needed to justify a new airplane won’t be ready until the 2040 decade.
The driving factor is, of course, new engines. But as LNA’s 13-part series about new airplane technology and 7-part series about new production technologies demonstrate, engines aren’t the only technology needed. However, without significant advances in engine technology, none of the others is sufficient to justify a new airplane.
Airbus’ A321neo, A321LR or A321XLR?
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By Bjorn Fehrm
October 23, 2025, © Leeham News: Airbus’s A321 was launched in November 1988, around the time the original A320 entered service. Delivery to the first A321 customer, Lufthansa, was in January 1994.
The initial sales of the A321 were modest, with deliveries of the variant languishing between one and three aircraft per month for the first ten years. It wasn’t until after the launch of the A320neo/A321neo in 2010 that sales climbed to 10 per month, 20 years after the first delivery. This shall be compared to the 30 per month after another 10 years in 2024.
The smaller A320 was at 24 per month by 2010 and then touched 35 per month in 2019 before it started to cede the market to the A321neo after COVID. Deliveries in 2024 were at 19 per month.
With the A321 dominating Airbus deliveries from 2022, the question is: which variant of the A321 is suitable for what routes? Does a “misuse” of an A321LR or XLR on short to medium routes mean an operational cost loss compared to a standard A321neo?
We look into the different A321neo variants and compare their capacities and operational costs in this series.
Summary:
- The Airbus A321 started life with low sales, the market preferring the smaller A319 and A320. One of the reasons was the large jump in capacity between the A320 and A321, more than 40 seats.
- By the introduction of the A320neo series, the market had developed to higher capacities. After COVID, the A321neo took over as the dominant A320 range variant.
Airbus sticks to 2027 EIS for A350F
By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 22, 2025, © Leeham News: Airbus reaffirmed its goal for the A350F to enter service in the second half of 2027, despite some customers telling LNA that EIS may slip to 2028. The new certification environment prompted by the Boeing 737 MAX crisis may mean a longer-than-anticipated review by Europe’s regulator, EASA, customers say.
Crawford Hamilton, head of freighter marketing for Airbus, said that, so far, the 2H2027 EIS remains the target.
Rendering of the Airbus A350F. Assembly of the first two airplanes is underway. First flight is expected next year, and the entry-into-service goal is the 2H2027. Credit: Airbus.
“I’ve spoken to both the chief engineer and the deputy program manager and the program manager about this recently because there are a lot of things in the rumor mill going around about this,” Hamilton said. “The answer is no, the basic structure there for the requirements that we’ve met is all still there. It’s the same as it was, and we are going toward that to meet the requirements from both the EASA and the FAA. So, as I stated, the EIS is in the second half of 2027 and remains so.”
Hamilton, who is no relation to this author, said that Airbus has worked with regulators since 2022 to understand the certification requirements.
He made his remarks at the Cargo Facts conference in Nashville (TN).
Blade-out design for CFM’s RISE; 2nd A320 line in Mobile
By Scott Hamilton
Arjan Hageman. Credit: GE Aerospace.
Oct. 22, 2025, © Leeham News: The Open Rotor engine and its evolution, the Open Fan, promise dramatically lower fuel consumption compared with evolutions of the ducted fan engine. The Open Rotor has counter-rotating fans, while the Open Fan has a single rotating fan with stators that do not rotate behind it, which can be adjusted or pivoted for maximum efficiency.
Open Rotor testing in the 1980s proved noisy, offered slower cruising speeds than conventional jet engines, and caused vibration that transferred to the vertical tails of the Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas MD-80 test beds. Questions about maintenance and concerns over blade failure were paramount.
Developers of the Open Fan, GE Aerospace, and Safran, under the CFM International brand, say objections to the Open Rotor design have been overcome. The noise is lower than that of the CFM LEAP engine, according to testing. The cruising speed is now projected to be comparable to today’s Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAXes. Maintenance durability, reliability, and dust ingestion testing aims to overcome entry-in-service maintenance shortcomings of the LEAP and competing Pratt & Whitney GTF engines.
Related Story
However, industry and airline officials LNA talks to aren’t yet convinced that blade out concerns have been resolved.
“We’re designing for blade-outs,” GE’s Arjan Hageman, vice president for the future of flight at GE, said in an interview with LNA earlier this month.
Airbus’ A220 conundrum
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By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 20, 2025, © Leeham News: Airbus and Boeing face a challenge that is good news and bad news.
The Airbus A220-300 is essentially an orphan. An “A220-500” is needed, but so is a higher production rate, and sales of the -300 don’t support this. Credit: Airbus.
The good news: Demand for most of their airplanes is high. The bad news: neither can meet the demand. Delivery slots are sold out for the A320neo and 737 MAX families into the next decade. Widebody delivery positions are also increasingly scarce. And the supply chain continues to fall short, while engine makers still struggle to deliver durable and reliable products.
Airbus has another problem that’s not so good news. Demand for its smallest airplane, the A220, has stalled. This is due in part to ongoing troubles with the Pratt & Whitney GTF engines. There are nearly 80 aircraft out of a delivered fleet of 451—an 18% AOG (aircraft on ground) rate–but PW says it’s responsible for only about 32 of the AOGs, or roughly 7% of the total fleet of aircraft. A handful of A220s have been scrapped to monetize for parts rather than be stored indefinitely, running up storage fees, awaiting new engines.
Another reason sales have stalled: The A220 is essentially an orphan airplane. Only 118 A220-100s have been ordered out of 941, or 12.5%. Some key airlines, such as Air France and Delta Air Lines, want a stretched version, commonly called the A220-500 (a name not adopted by Airbus). But adding to the family requires achieving profitability for the program. Airbus hasn’t accomplished this goal. To do so, suppliers must cut their prices, and the production rate must jump from the current 6-8 a month to 14/mo—a tall order given the lack of orders and the A220-300’s orphan status.
It’s a classic chicken-and-egg conundrum.
Heading toward year-end, Airbus maintains lead in narrowbody orders but Boeing commands the widebody sector
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By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 13, 2025, © Leeham News: As the commercial airliner industry sprints to the end of this year, Boeing remains the champion in the widebody, twin-aisle sector with a commanding lead over Airbus.
Figure 1
But the European manufacturer is the blow-out victor in the more important narrowbody, single-aisle sector where between 80% and 85% of the sales are made.
Boeing has 59% of the widebody backlog to Airbus’ 41%. These are the only two companies competing in this sector.
In the more crowded single-aisle 125-240 seat sector, Airbus has a 54% market share to Boeing’s 35%. China’s COMAC has a 10% share of the backlog, although its production and delivery performance is poor. Embraer’s E195-E2, has a 1% share of this sector. The E195-E2 is a 144-seat single class and 133-seat two-class airplane.
Figure 2
Embraer’s smaller E190-E2 competes with the Airbus A220-100. Airbus has 54% of this 100-125 seat sector with 45 planes in backlog to EMB’s 39 planes. Embraer’s smallest jet, the 76-seat E175-E1, has no competition. The 175 has a backlog of 208 aircraft.
Airbus Balances Automation and Airmanship
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By Chris Sloan
Oct. 09, 2025, © Leeham News: Automation, advances in the prospect and single-pilot operation, and overall aircraft safety are great for the airline and commercial aerospace industries.
But the downside is that pilot skills are subject to deterioration. Hands-on experience and skills become necessary in an instant when emergencies begin to pile up.
US Airways flight 1549, the so-called Miracle in the Hudson, is one example where advanced design in flight envelope protection in the Airbus A320, combined with the flying skills of the pilots, led to a successful water ditching alongside New York City.
Qantas Airways flight 32, an Airbus A380, suffered an uncontained engine failure that triggered more than 100 identified faults in the advanced computer system. However, the five pilots in the cockpit required experienced thinking and top-flight skills to land the airplane safely.
These are just two examples of technical advances combining with pilot skills for the ultimate safety of the airplane.
Airbus acknowledges the tension between automation, computer advancements, and the necessity for pilots to maintain hands-on flying skills.
Excerpt: The Rise and Fall of Boeing and the Way Back
Oct. 7, 2025, (c) Leeham News: Boeing’s decline into the existential crisis that befell the company in March 2019 was decades in the making. The 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas Corp. is pegged as the tripping point. But the foundation pre-dated the merger.
In Scott Hamilton’s new book, The Rise and Fall of Boeing, and the Way Back, takes a deep dive into Boeing’s rise from its 1916 birth through the piston era and the dawn of the jet age, when Boeing’s “family” approach to airplanes thrust it past the Douglas Aircraft Co., despite nearly losing its advantage. After peaking at more than 60% of the jet market share, Boeing began a long descent.
Rise and Fall not only documents strategic and tactical wins and losses, it goes into the development of the 737 MAX and its now-infamous MCAS that led to two fatal crashes in October 2018 and March 2019, plunging the company into a path that nearly brought it to bankruptcy. The leadership eras of Phil Condit, Harry Stonecipher, Jim McNerney, Dennis Muilenburg, and David Calhoun are reviewed and critiqued by suppliers and former Boeing employees. The current CEO, Kelly Ortberg, arrived on Aug. 8, 2024, just five weeks before the contract with the 33,000-member IAM 751 touch labor union expired. The union struck for 53 days before a historic contract was reached.
Ortberg’s not insignificant challenges include returning Boeing’s production rates to levels that predated the March 2019 grounding of the MAX; returning Commercial Airplanes and the Defense units to profitability; paying down billions of dollars in debt; and deciding what new airplane programs to launch, and when.
An excerpt of Rise and Fall sets the stage. The book in softback and eBook formats is available here.