19 January Deliveries. Worse Than the Pandemic.

In my first post on Friday, I argued the "record backlog + Boeing weakness = buy" narrative is structurally broken. Engine constraints, margin compression on legacy-priced orders, and aircraft being scrapped at age six for parts.

Zero engagement. Fair enough. Maybe the thesis felt speculative. So here are two hard numbers that dropped since then. They aren't speculative. They're from Airbus's own data, published Thursday.


𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗡𝗨𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥

Airbus delivered 19 aircraft in January 2026.

Not a typo. Nineteen. To 15 customers. Only one widebody, a single A350, for SWISS. Everything else narrowbodies and three A220s. The first delivery didn't happen until January 7. Then nothing for another week.

For context, here is every January this decade:

2020 — 31
2021 — 21 (pandemic)
2022 — 30
2023 — 20
2024 — 30
2025 — 25
𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 — 𝟭𝟵

This is the worst January since COVID. Worse than 2021's pandemic January. And it came immediately after December's 136-delivery blitz where 17% of 2025's entire output was crammed into 8% of the calendar year.

That pattern, "starve for eleven months, then sprint in December", is the delivery model now. Airbus needs it because engines don't arrive on schedule. Planes sit as engineless "gliders" for weeks or months. Cash gets trapped in inventory. Then in December, everything that can possibly be pushed out the door gets pushed. The January hangover is the cost.

𝗕𝗼𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝟰𝟱 𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗝𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆. More than double Airbus. On a stock trading at less than half the P/E.

If consensus is right that Airbus needs roughly 900 deliveries in 2026 to validate the 75/month rate ramp for 2027, the remaining eleven months now require an average of 80 per month. They have not sustained that rate in any month outside of a Q4 year-end push.

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𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗪

The Singapore Airshow, Asia's largest, closed today. Airbus's total commercial haul from a week of the biggest aerospace event in the region:

Four A321neos. One customer. Tigerair Taiwan.

The widely discussed AirAsia deal for up to 100 A220s? Not signed. Airbus's own SVP admitted at the show that only 21 A220s have ever been delivered across the entire Asia-Pacific region. The backlog there is 19 more.

Aerospace Global News called the order tally "exceptionally light," citing "airline frustration with delivery delays and manufacturers' constrained production capacity." Leeham News: "another quiet day for commercial aviation."

Meanwhile at the same show, P&W president Rick Deurloo repeated his timeline: engine normalisation by "the end of this decade." 2030. Airbus and P&W still have no supply agreement "for the foreseeable future," per Airbus's own departing commercial chief Christian Scherer on January 12.

And one more thing nobody here is watching: EASA test pilots flew COMAC's C919 in Shanghai in November. Certification projected 2028–2031. Faury himself called COMAC "a serious long-term competitor" in Dubai on February 3. When was the last time a duopoly incumbent publicly conceded there's "probably room for other players"?

FEBRUARY 19

Earnings in 11 days. Here is what 19 January deliveries tells you about what's coming:

If Airbus guides to 850+ deliveries for 2026, they are betting engine supply improves dramatically from where it is right now. January says it hasn't. Deurloo says it won't until 2030.

If Airbus guides below 850, the 75/month target for 2027 is dead and every model built on the rate ramp needs to be re-cut. The consensus €230 target assumes the ramp happens.

Free cash flow is the real tell. Airbus burned €4.8B in net cash in H1 2025. Needed a €5.4B single-quarter cash swing in Q4, the largest in company history, just to hit guidance. Ask yourself what happens when December's 136 deliveries become January's 19. Cash doesn't flow when planes don't deliver.

At 37x trailing earnings with its own CEO warning of "unprecedented crises" in a leaked memo, Airbus is priced for perfection eleven days before the numbers that will show whether perfection is remotely plausible.