Airplanes are made to fly to the sky, and if you can outpace a counterpart during these flights, it is a double pleasure. There is a continuous struggle for leadership above the clouds between two aircraft giants lasting for dozens of years. One of them is a US-based world-famous legend Boeing. The headquarters of another corporation is located in Europe, it is also very popular company Airbus. Last year, Airbus became a leader in the aircraft industry. The European producer boosted a number of bookings for aircraft at a record pace by 80% and through 2013 it concluded 1,619 contracts. According to an official release, Boeing received 1,531 orders. However, taking cancellations and returns registered during the year of 2013 into account, Airbus completed with 1,503 net bookings and Boeing, with 1,355. At the same time, Boeing was first in terms of deliveries. The American company delivered 648 airliners versus 626 planes produced by the European manufacturer. The new year has started that means the beginning of another race for clients and orders. Despite the latest results, the US Boeing keeps the world top position in civil aircraft production. Above all, it has very good chances to outperform Airbus in 2014 as the latter has a backlog of 5,559 bookings which are worth $809 billion. The company will need 8 years to finish them. Boeing's figure is much less – 5,080 airplanes.
