Boeing Faces a Steep Climb in Catching Up to Airbus

As Boeing works to address quality control issues, its new chief starts at a disadvantage in competing with the other big maker of passenger planes.

Four years ago, Airbus scored a major victory: For the first time in its history, more of its passenger planes were flying around the world than those made by its rival, Boeing. Airbus has only tightened its grip on the market since.

Shifting the balance of power back in Boeing’s favor will be one of the most difficult challenges facing its new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, who started last week. Pulling that off will require navigating the industrywide challenges hampering both companies while also landing a string of successes — starting with getting plane production back on track.

“Boeing is in a situation that is way more difficult than Airbus,” said Saïma Hussain, an analyst at AlphaValue, an equity research firm. “Airbus is gaining market share while Boeing needs to recover.”

The two companies form a duopoly in the global passenger plane market, but Airbus has far outproduced and outsold Boeing in recent years. Airbus has delivered over 3,800 planes to customers since the start of 2019, while Boeing has handed about 2,100, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider.

Of late, however, both companies are struggling to make planes fast enough for their customers, who are desperate for aircraft to serve rising global demand for travel.

“Is it frustrating? Of course. Would we love to get more aircraft more quickly? Of course,” Campbell Wilson, the chief executive of Air India, a Boeing and Airbus customer, said last month during a panel discussion at the Farnborough Air Show near London. But there is a silver lining, he added: “We’re all on the same boat. We’re all suffering.”