Airbus has won the month of October, reporting a huge amount of new aircraft added to their order book, totaling 415 for the start of autumn! This brings Airbus up to a total of 718 for the year.

What are the details?

Airbus and Boeing have been long-held rivals, with each aerospace builder competing to get the most orders from airlines and other entities per month.

But, according to Reuters, it seems that Airbus has pulled ahead with a staggering 415 aircraft orders in the month of October alone! So far the aircraft builder has made 718 orders this year, but removing canceled aircraft from previous orders leaves them at a positive 542 orders.

Boeing, on the other hand, is currently sitting on a year total of 170 up to the end of September. If we were to include cancellations, is actually a positive total of just 54 aircraft.

What orders did Airbus get?

Make no mistake, whilst credit is due for Airbus' hard work this month, their huge lead actually comes from their biggest order ever by a single airline.

IndiGo, the Indian low-cost carrier, placed a huge order for 300 more A320neo variants. Specifically, the order is for a mix for A320neos, A321neos and A321XLRs. This places the total amount of aircraft on order from Airbus to the carrier at a huge 730. As a matter of perspective, if the waiting time is around seven years for airbus aircraft, Indigo can expect 100 aircraft to be delivered each year from Airbus in the near future.

The carrier already operates 200 Airbus A320ceo aircraft.

Ronojoy Dutta, Chief Executive Officer of IndiGo commented in a press release,
"This order is an important milestone, as it reiterates our mission of strengthening air connectivity in India, which will in turn boost economic growth and mobility. India is expected to continue with its strong aviation growth and we are well on our way to build the world’s best air transportation system, to serve more customers and deliver on our promise of providing low fares and a courteous, hassle free experience to them.”

Infographic Airbus A320neo statistics
Airbus is proud to be supporting IndiGo. Photo: Airbus

What other orders did Airbus get?

Airbus also received a few other orders in October from some other well-known airlines. Malaysia's low-cost carrier Air Asia X (the international sub-airline) ordered 30 Airbus A321XLRs.

Wizz Air ordered 20 XLRs, in addition to the others already on order from the Paris Air Show.

JetSMART ordered 12 Airbus A321XLRs as well. Lastly, two unknown customers (yet to be revealed) locked in an order for 15 A321XLRS.

IndiGo Airbus order
The IndiGo Airbus order could include the XLR. Photo: Airbus

China Airlines ordered 11 A321neos (not an XLR, but never say never), and Tigerair Taiwan has begun its expansion with seven A320neos.

Love was thrown to the A220, with five ordered between Air Austral (three ordered) and Air Tanzania (two ordered).

What about the Airbus backlog?

According to Airwise, the current Airbus order book looks like this:

The backlog of ordered aircraft still to be delivered stood at 7,471 at the end of October, including 6,107 from the A320-family, 436 A220s, 593 A350s, 284 A330s and 51 A380s. Airbus delivered 77 commercial aircraft in October, taking its 2019 total to 648.

Surprisingly, this month there didn't seem to be any widebody orders, showing just how popular the narrowbody type is.

What do you think of these orders? Let us know in the comments.