Boeing 737 no longer the most popular aircraft Airbus A320 takes its place.

[Blueadventures]

• Since the 1960s, the Boeing 737 has ruled the skies.
• But this week (October 2025), it was overtaken by the Airbus A320 as the most popular plane in commercial aviation.
• Airbus has now delivered 12,260 A320s to airlines, one more than the 737.

[johnm]

0.000081566 % ? increase in popularity (could be some more zero's) .................. a thin margin so far

 

I wonder which pilot thinks which plane is better (both planes have bitten the unwary) 

[kgwilson]

From a design perspective the A320 is far more modern designed as Fly by Wire from the start. The 737 still has all the cables and controls that can be manually managed. The undercarriage is too short also so the engines have had to be steadily move forwards and upwards with a flat bottom cowl to allow the newer larger and quieter engines to be installed resulting in stability issues that had to be addressed such as MCAS which was largely the causes of the crashes in Indonesia & Ethiopia. This led to the grounding of the 737Max & the fallout for Boeing and its management culture has resulted in Airbus leapfrogging Boeing and the worlds biggest commercial aircraft manufacturer. 

 

Boeings reputation kept spiralling downward as many other issues appeared. If it wasn't for the US government military contracts Boeing may have gone bankrupt. Like all big US companies that screw up they get deemed as too big to fail & the government bails them out.

[facthunter]

Money saving policies and accountant driven short cuts, outsourcing etc. The earlier 737s had rudder problems that lost a few Planes. I deliberately Avoided Piloting THAT plane though most of my time was on the B 727-276, Boeings stretched Trijet and a well constructed thing by Contrast.

        kgwilson covered it well. including the Engine Positioning.  I'm OK with the Airbus A 320 although the cabin width is a Bit less for 6 seats abreast. It certainly has plenty of engine thrust. An easy winner in my books

[Student Pilot]

Aircraft Nev, they are Aircraft not planes 😜 A few aeronauts I have known speak highly of the 727, that and the Dreamliner as the nicest aircraft to fly. 

[facthunter]

The B727 was Underpowered sometimes slow to altitudes and IF you got slow it fell out of the sky on approach. Lots of FLAP and DRAG. Not a Beginners Plane. Designed to use shorter strips. . Lots of redundancy in the systems.  keep engines spooled up below 3,000 ft .Very versatile, Powerful controls. 2 Yaw Dampers on the rudder.   Lots of flap speeds and settings and 2 schedules depending on actual Weight. .

 Those Dreamliner Lovers Probably never got to fly the Douglas DC9.  We called it the "Ducati of the Skies".  Had little range. 3 Hours to empty.  They are ALL PLANES to me. Nev 

[pmccarthy]

When the 727 arrived in Oz there was a plastic model issued very cheaply as a promotion and I bought one. Less than half the price of an air fix model and very good. 1964 I believe.

[facthunter]

Yes October 16th 1964 at  Essendon. Both Ansett and TAA together. 100 series B727, Nev