Airbus's order-fest at last month's Paris air show has catapulted it ahead of its rival in what was a record first six months for sales that has seen the combined backlog surge to 5,700 aircraft.
The two rivals booked a record half-year total of 1,162 net orders between January and June - 50% up on the same period last year when 577 orders were placed.
It was Airbus's performance which drove the increase this year - helped by the Paris air show which gave an artificial boost to the first-half figures compared with 2006.
Airbus has, in recent years, trailed its rival in orders until late in the year, but in 2007 has secured 623 orders against 539 for Boeing.
In the same period last year Airbus had accumulated just 97 net orders, compared with 480 for Boeing.
Airbus has suffered 57 cancellations during the first half, the bulk of which (26 aircraft) results from the deletion of firm contracts by A350 XWB customers placed for the original version of the aircraft, namely Aviation Lease and Finance Company (Alafco), CIT and Finnair.
Airbus still has several firm contracts in its A350 backlog for the old model including Air Europa (10), Eurofly (3), International Lease Finance (16) and TAP Portugal (10), which chief salesman John Leahy says must be switched to the XWB or dropped by the end of the year.
Airbus has also finally acknowledged the cancellation of Emirates' order for 18 A340-600s - but no sign yet of the additional A380s the airline announced at Paris. Bizarrely Airbus continues to list five A310s on backlog for Iraqi Airways - a contract signed in 1990.
Boeing had its best-ever first-half sales performance, with orders for 737s and 787s driving the success. Also notable was the recovery of the 767 with 36 orders, and continuing strong sales of the 777 - in contrast to the A340-500/600 which was outsold by its predecessor the A340-300.
Airbus continues to lead Boeing in output, but the margin of its advantage has closed to less than 5%. Their combined output of 451 aircraft is almost 10% up on last year's period and a first half-year industry record.
The two airframers are on track to reach their full-year targets of around 450 aircraft each, for a combined total of 900 deliveries.
With sales continuing to outperform deliveries, the industry's order backlog as spiralled to 5,700 aircraft. This is 14% up on the 2006 year-end total of 4,990 aircraft, and represents around six years of production at current rates.
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Source: Flight International
