截至2015年前11個月，空客銷售了1,000多架飛機，因此，在與對手波音的年度訂單競賽中，這家歐洲航空巨人幾乎穩操勝券。然而，由于交付的滯后，空客十有八九難以實現其2015年的生產目標，而波音也將因此繼續坐擁“世界最大的飛機制造商”頭銜。

就飛機訂單數而言（不計訂單取消），波音拿到了1,007架，比空客少568架。但波音的飛機交付數量卻大幅領先空客，同期交付數量多出了709架。2015年前11個月，空客僅交付了556架飛機，比自身的2015年生產目標少了74架。

航空顧問公司Teal Group分析業務副總裁理查德?阿伯拉菲亞表示，盡管這一邊倒的訂單冊證明了空客在銷量上擊敗了波音，但這些數字的背后卻蘊含著更加微妙的信息。

他說：“波音實際上略微領先。人們在對比每一年的數據時都樂于尋找炫耀的資本，但從其他方面來看，這種做法是毫無意義的，因為整個行業的訂單規模才1.2萬架。目前的情況是，空客在飛機數量上略微領先，而波音則在價值方面稍勝一籌?？湛偷膬瀯菰谟谡w機，而波音的優勢在于寬體機。綜合來看，兩家公司各占約50%的市場份額?！?/p>

空客在過去幾年中的銷售業績十分強勁，尤其是其備受歡迎的A320窄體機最新的迭代機型A320neo。該機型將于下個月投入商業運營。然而，公司的生產能力拖了后腿。寬體機A350的交付量未能達到2015年的預期目標，到目前為止僅交付了11架（低于目標交付量4架）。雖然空客首席執行官法布里斯?布利葉已承認供應商難以跟進空客提升A350生產線產能的做法，但該公司仍計劃在2016年交付30架A350。

所以，盡管空客近期在業內的統計數據中捷報頻傳，但供應商問題可能會在2016年給公司帶來麻煩?？湛拖鄬τ诓ㄒ舻氖袌鰞瀯菰谟谡w機型，這一點沒有變化。波音在其華盛頓州埃弗里特的工廠舉行了媒體發布會，向公眾展示了其新737MAX窄體機型，但空客發布的數據顯示，空客在節油小型機體市場中的份額達到了60%。

得益于亞洲和世界其他地區短途旅行需求的增加，窄體機市場領域一直在發展壯大。由于波音737MAX的預計服役時間在2017年之后，因此空客仍有時間繼續發揮其優勢。2015年，波音737MAX系列機型僅賣出了292架，而上年同期為781架?？湛虯320neo斬獲了825架的訂單，較上年的782架有所增加。總體來看，空客拿到了4,443架A320neos訂單，而波音的737MAX訂單還不到3,000架。

空客是否能維持這一市場優勢取決于多個因素，尤其是兩家公司執行其激進制造計劃的能力。鑒于訂單的繼續增長，空客和波音都在大幅提升生產率。然而，阿伯拉菲亞表示，從投資者的角度來看，對飛機行業有著最大影響的因素卻完全不在雙方首席執行官的掌控之中，一個是油價，一個是利率。

他說，如果油價仍低位運行，而借貸成本繼續上升，該行業將很快陷入困境。當油價高居不下，借貸成本處于低位時，航空公司自然而然會考慮用更新更節油的機型替換老型號的耗油機型。但是如果這一環境發生變化，航空公司購買新機型的可能性就會降低。

阿伯拉菲亞說：“近七八年來，我們一直生活在這一近乎理想的環境中——借貸成本幾乎為零——而且人們有充分的理由來替換其老舊機型。其中的一個因素正在變化，而另一個因素可能會徹底改變?！保ㄘ敻恢形木W）

譯者：馮豐

校對：詹妮

Airbus has sold more than 1,000 aircraft in the first 11 months of this year, making the European aerospace giant more or less a lock to win its annual order competition with rival Boeing “BA” . But with deliveries lagging, Airbus will almost certainly fail to meet its production targets for 2015, letting Boeing hold onto the “world’s largest plane maker” crown.

In terms of aircraft orders, Airbus outsold Boeing 1,007 to 568, excluding cancellations. Boeing, meanwhile, out-delivered Airbus by a wide margin, with 709 aircraft delivered over the same period. Airbus handed over the keys to just 556 aircraft in the first 11 months of the year, leaving it 74 aircraft short of its 2015 production target.

While the lopsided order book suggests Airbus is trouncing Boeing sales, a deeper reading of the numbers tells a more nuanced story, says Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at aerospace consultancy Teal Group.

“Boeing’s actually a little bit ahead,” he says. “The idea of looking at any one year—it’s fun for bragging rights but otherwise it’s completely meaningless when you’ve got an industry with 12,000 jets on backlog. What you’ve got is a situation where Airbus is a little ahead in number of tails, but Boeing is slightly ahead in value. Airbus has a better position in the narrow-body market, Boeing is ahead in wide-body, and together it works out to be about 50-50.”

Airbus has enjoyed strong sales over the last several years, particularly for the latest iteration of its popular A320 narrow-body jet–the A320neo–which will begin commercial operation next month. But the company has had trouble keeping pace on the production side. Deliveries of its wide-body A350 lag 2015 projections, with just 11 of the jets delivered so far in 2015 (four short of the company’s target). Airbus plans to deliver 30 A350s in 2016 even as Airbus CEO FabriceBrégier has acknowledged that suppliers are already having trouble coping withAirbus’s increased rate of production on the A350 line.

That could spell trouble for the company going into 2016, though there’s plenty of good news for Airbus in the latest batch of industry numbers. Airbus’s strong position relative to Boeing in the narrow-body jetliner market persists. As Boeing hosted media at its Everett, Wash., manufacturing facility on Monday and Tuesday for a public unveiling of its new 737MAX narrow-body airliner, numbers released by Airbus showed that it has grabbed 60% of the market for fuel-efficient, smaller-body jets.

That market segment that continues to boom thanks to demand for short-haul air travel routes in Asia and elsewhere. And with Boeing’s 737MAX slated to enter service no sooner than 2017, Airbus has time to press its advantage. Boeing has sold just 292 jets in the 737MAX family thus far this year, compared with 781 in the same period last year. Airbus logged 825 orders for the A320neo, up from 782 the year before. All said, Airbus has 4,443 A320neos, while Boeing has just shy of 3,000 737MAX jets on order.

Whether or not Airbus can retain that market advantage will depend on several factors, not least each company’s ability to execute its aggressive manufacturing programs. Both Airbus and Boeing are pushing manufacturing rates skyward as orders continue to swell. But from an investor standpoint, Aboulafia says, the factors that could have the biggest impact on the industry are completely out of their CEOs’ hands: fuel prices and interest rates.

If oil prices remain low and the cost of borrowing inches upward, the industry could quickly find itself in trouble, he says. When fuel is costly and cash is cheap, it makes a lot of sense for airlines to look at replacing older, less efficient airplanes with newer, more efficient models. But if the environment changes, airlines may be less likely to buy new planes.

“We’ve been living in this incredibly perfect environment for seven or eight years now where cash is almost free and there’s every reason in the world to replace your older aircraft,” Aboulafia says. “One of those is changing and the other one could well change.”