Aug. 9—Airbus didn't make much of an effort to stack up new jet orders at the Farnborough Air Show last month, leaving that to Boeing. The European jet maker didn't need to.

Tallying all the orders for the entire month, Airbus still blew Boeing away on sales — thanks largely to a huge order from China that was finalized unusually swiftly.

When the final data on July orders came through Monday from the manufacturers, Airbus had racked up 397 net firm orders compared with just 126 for Boeing.

That leaves Airbus with a total of 656 net new orders and Boeing with 312 through the first seven months of the year.

In addition, Boeing may claim another 40 net orders that were restored to the firm order backlog in July after settling contractual or financial doubts about whether those orders would hold up.

Taking those into account slightly improves the balance so far this year to 656 net orders for Airbus and 362 for Boeing.

That reflects the big swing in fortune toward Airbus since 2018.

That year, before the second MAX crash and the wave of Boeing troubles and missteps that followed, Boeing booked a total of 893 net jet orders compared with 747 net orders for Airbus.

On the production front, Airbus delivered 46 commercial jets to customers in July, compared with 26 delivered by Boeing.

The Boeing deliveries consisted of 23 MAXs and three widebody freighters.

The Airbus deliveries consisted of 35 A320 family single-aisle jets that compete with the MAX, plus five smaller A220s and six widebody passenger jets.

Jet deliveries by both Airbus and Boeing have fluctuated greatly month by month through the year as the two manufacturers struggle with supply chain shortages. July was a slow month for both.

Through July, Airbus has delivered a total of 343 commercial jets this year while Boeing has delivered 242.

Airbus wins in China

Chinese carriers, which some years ago were taking about a third of all the single-aisle 737s Boeing built in Renton, haven't ordered any for almost seven years.

The current political and military tension between China and the U.S. means there is little prospect of a new order anytime soon.

And China, unlike most of the rest of the world, has not yet cleared the 737 MAX to fly again. So Chinese airlines haven't taken delivery of a 737 MAX since that jet was grounded in March 2019.

As air traffic begins to recover in that huge market, Airbus has a clear field.

Chinese carriers ordered 292 Airbus single-aisle jets in July, composed of 196 of the largest model A321neos, plus 82 of the A320neos and 14 of the smallest model A319neos.

In the past, when the Chinese government has announced large airplane orders with either Airbus or Boeing, the details haven't typically been finalized with the individual Chinese airlines until months later.

In this case, the order was announced in early July, weeks ahead of the Farnborough Air Show, and finalized quickly.

Separately, easyJet of the U.K. booked another notably large order for 56 of Airbus's A320neos.

Airbus won orders for just two long-haul widebody jets, with Turkish Airlines booking two A350-900s.

In total, Airbus booked 401 new orders and had four cancellations. The latter were A350-900s ordered by Russian carrier Aeroflot and cancelled as a result of the sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Separately, Airbus's bitter legal dispute with Gulf carrier Qatar Airways over the seriousness of paint damage to the airline's A350s has provided Boeing an opening.

At Farnborough in July, Qatar Airlines announced an order for 25 MAXs.

The only other large Boeing sales win in the month also came at Farnborough when Delta ordered 100 MAXs, all the largest MAX 10 variant.

Boeing's prospects for increased sales and deliveries for the rest of the year rest heavily with the 787 Dreamliner.

Deliveries of the 787 were still halted in July, as they have been for more than a year due to manufacturing quality defects. That has hampered sales and led to some order cancellations.

However, 787 deliveries should resume this week after the Federal Aviation Administration formally ruled Monday that Boeing now meets the certification standard, lifting the blockage.

Deliveries will ramp up only slowly. FAA technical experts must inspect each individual 787 that is to be delivered. And a backlog of 120 stored planes has to be cleared.

Still, August should see at least the beginning of a recovery in Boeing's delivery numbers.

Correction: An earlier version of this story mis-identified the airline that had four A350 orders cancelled in July by Airbus. It was Aeroflot of Russia, not Qatar Airways.

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