Record aircraft orders keep climbing. Deliveries can't keep up

Buyers have packed the order books at the major OEMs. Those commitments run years into the future, tying up billions of dollars in aircraft that still have to make their way through crowded factories.Airbus closed 2025 with the largest backlog in its history: 8,754 commercial aircraft. Boeing ended the second quarter of 2026 with a company backlog worth $715 billion. Embraer reached its seventh consecutive record level of committed orders during the same quarter. Textron Aviation carried $8 billion in orders for Cessna and Beechcraft aircraft.The orders are moving through factories that lost experienced workers during the pandemic, hired large groups of replacements and still depend on suppliers facing the same strain. Every new employee enters a production system where skill develops through years of completed builds. The backlog keeps raising the cost of each delay. An unfinished aircraft occupies factory space while its revenue moves into a later quarter. Customers may need to keep older planes in service, find expensive short-term lift or postpone routes they had expected to open. Pressure builds at every station as more orders enter the queue.Textron puts a number on the experience gapTextron Aviation gave investors one of the clearest views of the workforce problem during its July 28 earnings call. Chief executive Lisa Atherton said about half of the company's aviation workforce has less than five years of experience. In 2019, employees with that level of experience made up less than 30 percent. Atherton said an aircraft factory employee often needs five to seven years to gain enough experience across the production floor. Many people hired around 2022 will reach their fifth year in 2027, when Textron expects delivery performance to begin improving more clearly.Customers are already waiting. Textron Aviation handed over 40 Citation jets in the second quarter of 2026, down from 49 a year earlier. First-half deliveries reached 77 jets, compared with 80 during the same period in 2025. Revenue rose one percent as higher prices and service sales carried more of the load. Segment profit slipped from $170 million to $165 million because factory inefficiencies and lower aircraft volume raised costs.Textron finance chief David Rosenberg told analysts that better factory performance could add about $150 million in profit over time. He said current productivity problems are raising production costs and preventing the company from delivering additional aircraft. That money remains locked inside factories where completed jets cannot move quickly enough to their buyers.Aircraft work takes years to learnAircraft assembly requires precision, traceability, patience and judgment. A worker may install the same system dozens of times before learning how small differences in fit, material or sequence change the job. Inspectors develop judgment through repeated exposure to defects. Supervisors learn where a delay will travel next. Engineers become faster at solving factory problems after seeing earlier versions of the same issue. Years of experience matter most when the planned production sequence breaks. Textron sometimes moves an aircraft forward before a part arrives, then sends employees back to complete the missing work. Atherton called this out-of-station work and said newer employees have less experience with the workarounds it requires. A worker may have to reach an area that was easier to access earlier in the build. Installed equipment may need to be removed. Engineers spend more time answering questions on the floor as inspectors prepare to check work completed in an unusual sequence.Extra labor hours spread across every delayed aircraft. Several disrupted builds can crowd the same part of the factory while new aircraft continue entering the line.Textron has increased engineering support inside its factories and expanded its Career and Learning Center. The company is adding capacity in landing gear, milling and paint. Employees still need repeated builds before those investments produce a steadier flow of completed jets. The order book keeps growing during that learning period.The supplier base carries the same strainFinal assembly receives most of the public attention because finished aircraft leave from those plants. The production chain starts much farther away, often inside smaller companies with limited staff and highly specialized work.Aircraft makers depend on suppliers that forge metal, machine parts, cast complex shapes, build engines and produce avionics. Some suppliers may have only a few employees who know how to perform a critical process. A retirement or departure can reduce output for months.Atherton told investors that workforce turnover also affected Textron's suppliers. When an engine, spar, landing gear component or hydraulic unit arrives late, the delay reaches the final line. Textron has started buying some parts from more than one source. The company also created a council to work with suppliers used across several Textron businesses.GE Aerospace described a similar environment in its 2025 annual report. The engine maker said its supply chain was recovering from a constrained and fractured post-pandemic period as demand climbed. More than 500 direct suppliers support GE Aerospace, creating hundreds of places where a labor shortage, quality problem or late shipment can slow an engine.The effect may appear weeks later at an aircraft plant. By then, workers may already be building around the missing part. A single component can leave millions of dollars sitting unfinished on the factory floor.The labor gap reaches across aerospaceThe Aerospace Industries Association and McKinsey studied more than 30 aerospace and defense companies with over 600,000 U.S. employees. Their 2025 workforce report found that industry attrition remained near 15 percent in 2024, more than twice the average across other U.S. industries. The report said companies needed 30 to 40 percent more productivity from their existing workers as demand increased and hiring became harder. Those gains must come from a workforce carrying a growing training burden.Reuters reported from the 2026 Farnborough Airshow that the United Kingdom faces a shortage of about 10,000 specialized aerospace engineers each year. Data from the Royal Aeronautical Society showed that more than half of licensed aerospace engineers in Britain were over 50, with fewer than 10 percent under 30.The shortage reaches machinists, mechanics, inspectors, toolmakers and production supervisors. Every job follows its own learning curve. Senior employees carry much of the training load while moving closer to retirement themselves.Aerospace companies are also competing with technology firms for engineers. Software and artificial intelligence companies can offer strong salaries, flexible locations and faster career movement. Aircraft production remains tied to factories where employees must master specialized processes under strict safety controls.Each retirement can remove decades of judgment from a line that has already been asked to build more.Airbus is moving faster through a fragile systemAirbus delivered 793 commercial aircraft in 2025 after recording 1,000 gross orders. Its backlog climbed above 9,000 aircraft during the first quarter of 2026. The company delivered a record 237 commercial aircraft during the second quarter, according to Reuters, bringing first-half deliveries to 351. Airbus carried a record backlog of 9,222 commercial aircraft and kept its full-year delivery goal near 870.Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury credited stronger factory work and improved engine availability. Pratt andamp; Whitney engine shortages had disrupted output earlier in the year, giving one supplier a powerful influence over delivery schedules across several assembly lines.The record quarter pushed more aircraft toward customers. New orders continued feeding work into a backlog that already represented years of production. Airbus must keep engines arriving, workers trained and assembly lines moving while hundreds of additional planes enter the system.Boeing's unprecedented backlog raises the stakesBoeing delivered 143 commercial aircraft during the first quarter of 2026. Second-quarter deliveries reached 171, bringing the first-half total to 314. The company ended June with the largest backlog in its history, worth $715 billion, including more than 6,200 commercial airplanes.Each increase in Boeing's monthly production rate requires more trained workers throughout the company and its suppliers. Engines must reach the assembly line on schedule. Fuselage sections have to meet quality standards before installation. Completed aircraft must clear inspections before customers can accept them.Boeing has continued rebuilding factory output while working through tighter regulatory scrutiny and added quality controls. Any increase in the planned production rate still depends on thousands of connected jobs being completed in sequence.Airlines need those planes to replace older fleets and expand their schedules. A delayed delivery can force a carrier to keep an aging aircraft longer, find another plane on the leasing market or reduce planned growth. Boeing's backlog leaves little room for delays to disappear quietly.Business jet makers face the same squeezeBombardier entered the second half of 2026 with a $21.8 billion backlog, up $4.3 billion from the end of 2025. The company delivered 32 business jets during the second quarter, down from 36 a year earlier. Revenue still rose through stronger pricing and service work. Reuters reported that engine and window shortages continued to affect delivery timing.Bombardier chief executive Eric Martel said the company continued working through supply problems that affected costs and delivery timing. Each late aircraft places more pressure on the remaining months of the year as customers wait for jets that may already have crews, routes and operating plans attached to them.Textron's Citation backlog remained strong while quarterly jet deliveries declined. Its current pace leaves the company short of the roughly 200 annual jet deliveries Atherton has identified as a goal.Embraer has moved faster. The Brazilian manufacturer delivered 44 aircraft in the first quarter of 2026, up 47 percent from a year earlier. Second-quarter deliveries reached 65 aircraft, its strongest second-quarter result in 16 years. First-half deliveries totaled 109 aircraft, about 20 percent above the same period in 2025. Its backlog reached $34.5 billion during the second quarter, marking the company's seventh consecutive record.Embraer credited progress in leveling production, which spreads work more evenly through the factory and gives suppliers a steadier schedule. Rising deliveries helped aircraft leave the system faster, while new orders continued adding pressure beyond the factory gates.The next production race will be fought on the factory floorAerospace companies are spending on training centers, apprenticeships, factory equipment and engineering support. GE Aerospace and its foundation committed $2.3 million to skilled manufacturing programs after a survey found that one-third of manufacturing workers hired after the pandemic lacked confidence in their skills. Textron is redesigning factory work so newer employees can complete jobs with fewer disruptions. Manufacturers are qualifying second suppliers for parts that have repeatedly arrived late. These efforts address bottlenecks throughout the production chain. The workforce still gains judgment through completed aircraft, one build after another.A sales campaign can add hundreds of orders within months. Expanding factory output requires years of training across the manufacturer and every supplier feeding its assembly lines. Textron expects its newer workforce to reach a stronger level of experience in 2027. Suppliers are moving through their own training cycles while Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier carry record or near-record backlogs.Atherton expects the first clearer gains in Textron Aviation deliveries during the middle or later part of 2027. Until then, aircraft orders will continue arriving at factories where the race to rebuild skill is already running behind the demand.Browse current business jet listings on GlobalAir.com