For most of 2026, Boeing was quietly winning. Through the first four months of the year, the American giant had handed over more jets than its European rival, and it looked as though the comeback story was finally taking shape. Then came May — and Airbus took it all back.

By the end of May, Airbus had delivered 262 aircraft to Boeing’s 250, overtaking its rival on the strength of its best single month of the year. On new orders, the gap is not close at all: Airbus’s order book for 2026 dwarfs Boeing’s. The world’s most famous corporate duel is, once again, tilting blue-and-white.

The race that flipped

The delivery contest has been a genuine back-and-forth. In the first quarter, Boeing actually led, handing over roughly 143 jets to Airbus’s 114 as it pushed 737 MAX production back up. But Airbus closed hard through the spring, peaking at around 81 deliveries in May alone — enough to erase Boeing’s lead and pull ahead on the year-to-date scoreboard.

Monthly delivery figures are noisy, and a strong June from either side could flip the running total again. But the direction of travel by mid-year favoured Airbus.

Orders tell a starker story

If deliveries are a tight race, orders are a rout. By one mid-year tally Airbus had booked around 368 net orders to Boeing’s roughly 140 — figures vary by source and cutoff date, but every count puts Airbus comfortably ahead. The engine of that lead is the A320neo family, and above all the A321neo and its long-range A321XLR cousin, which let airlines fly longer, thinner routes on a single aisle.

Boeing is far from beaten. The 737 MAX still sells strongly and underpins a deep backlog, and the company has been winning fresh widebody business. But it continues to work through the production and reputational damage of recent years, and that shows up in the order numbers.

Why the scoreboard matters

Airbus and Boeing build nearly every large airliner in the Western world, so their rivalry decides what airlines can buy, how fast, and at what price. And with both sides sitting on multi-year backlogs, the contest is shifting from who can sell the most jets to who can actually build them — a question of supply chains, engine availability and factory throughput as much as salesmanship.

For now, Airbus has the momentum on both counts. But this is a duel measured in decades, not months. Boeing has come back from worse, and the next monthly tally is never far away. The only safe prediction is that the scoreboard will change again.

Sources: Forecast International / Flight Plan; Aviation Week; Simple Flying; Aerospace Global News.