Airbus’s long-haul sales showed signs of revival in May as the airframer recorded an order for 15 A350-900s.
The agreement, assigned to an undisclosed customer, is the first order for the A350 for nine months – the last being United Airlines’ deal for 10 signed in September 2017.
Airbus’s latest backlog figures show that 679 A350-900s have been ordered.
The new A350 deal also takes to 17 the gross number of long-haul twinjets ordered from Airbus so far this year, alongside an SAS A330-300 and a single A330-200 for the military tanker programme.
Airbus’s long-haul programmes – including the A380 – crept into positive order figures, as a result, with a net total of three aircraft for the first five months of this year.
Lufthansa accounted for the only single-aisle orders during May, after agreeing to take six A320neos and three A320s.
These took the net total of A320-family orders to 108 this year.
Airbus has also delivered 223 aircraft overall, some 8% down on the 242 reached at the same stage last year.
