Company profile
- Industry
- Aerospace and defense
- Founded
- 1970
- Headquarters
- Leiden, Netherlands
- Ownership
- Publicly traded
Profiles are auto-generated and infrequently updated.
The analyses
The Standards War · Moat & Competition
Airbus's Lead Predates the MAX Crashes: 65% of the Single-Aisle Backlog by Mid-2021
The story says two 737 MAX crashes handed Airbus the lead. The story is wrong. Boeing out-delivered Airbus every year from 2012 to 2018. By mid-2021 Airbus held 65% of the single-aisle backlog — a gap the crashes accelerated but did not create.
8 min
The Bet · Decision Forks
Airbus Bet €15 Billion the World Would Fly Through Hubs. The World Flew Around Them.
Airbus launched the A380 in 2000 to dominate a hub-and-spoke future it forecast at nearly 1,200 very-large aircraft by 2022. It built 251, killed the programme in 2019, and lost to planes with half the engines.
8 min
The Moat Anatomy · Moat & Competition
There Are Only Two Companies on Earth That Can Build a Big Jet. That's the Moat - and the Fragility.
The Airbus-Boeing duopoly looks unbreakable, and in 2024 Airbus delivered 766 aircraft to Boeing's 348. But the moat was built on subsidies the WTO ruled illegal on both sides - and a Chinese rival shipped just 12 planes.
8 min