At ch-aviation we are tracking new aircraft deliveries of the largest aircraft manufacturers: Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, COMAC, De Havilland, Embraer and Irkut.

New aircraft deliveries almost dried up in April, when we saw just 15 aircraft delivered by all manufacturers. In May, there was a small sign of recovery – 19 brand-new aircraft were delivered globally.

Still, the impact of Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic remain significant. Last year there were 133 aircraft delivered in the month of May.

We saw the first signs of aircraft deliveries being hit in February:

The first two months are usually slower for the airlines, but March to June usually is a very busy stretch both for manufacturers and airlines. With the COVID-19 pandemic we saw new aircraft deliveries went down, but the month of May was slightly better than April for manufacturers.

Boeing deliveries last spring were hit by the grounding of Boeing 737MAX aircraft, but that now looks like a breeze for Boeing compared to this year’s numbers. Boeing deliveries went even further down in May – the U.S. manufacturer delivered just 3 new aircraft. Boeing hasn’t delivered any aircraft in passenger configuration – 2 777s for “China Southern Airlines” and 1 B767-300 for “UPS Airlines” were delivered as freighters.

Airbus in February still had a quite positive month with more deliveries than the year before (mainly due to more Airbus A220 deliveries). When the global pandemic spread, new aircraft deliveries by the European manufacturer went downhill, but May brought some optimism. Airbus delivered 15 new aircraft to its customers, including a of types and airlines – from the smallest (A220-300 for “Air Canada”) to the largest (A350-1000 for “British Airways”).

When looking at grounded fleets and capacity developments toward recovery we see China, Hong Kong and Macao far ahead. The same goes with new aircraft deliveries.

The number of new deliveries in China, Hong Kong and Macao stopped when the region entered COVID-19. There were no new aircraft deliveries to airlines in China, Hong Kong and Macao in February. There was one delivery each month in March and April 2020, but the month of May brought some optimism: airlines accepted 6 aircraft during the month. It is less than half what manufacturers delivered the same month of last year, but it is some sign of recovery. It is important to note half of the deliveries were taken by “China Southern Airlines” which took 2 777-200Fs from “Boeing” and one A320NEO from “Airbus”.

Asia is an important region for the new aircraft deliveries – 42% of all deliveries went to this continent in 2019.

We used ch-aviation fleets advanced for this analysis.

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