Airbus is laying the groundwork for a replacement for its best-selling A320 and expects to formally launch a successor program in 2030, according to CEO Guillaume Faury.
In an interview with Aviation Week published on Thursday, Faury said Airbus will stick to the previously tentative 2030 launch date even as rival Boeing delays work on its own next-generation aircraft.
“We say what we do, we do what we say,” he said. “We are preparing the successor of the A320, which we call eAction, with a view of launching the program in 2030. We have a lot of research and technology development going on, comparison of technology solutions, pre-projects, and simulations. There is work [happening] with partners to review the different options for wings, fuselage, propulsion system, and industrial systems. We are moving forward.”
The company is committed to seeing the aircraft enter commercial service in the “second half of the next decade,” Faury added.
Airbus has been working on what is described as the technological building blocks for a potential A320 successor since at least 2021, but public information about the program is scarce. The company has never elaborated on the type of technology that could be incorporated into the design, and Faury did not discuss technical details in his conversation with Aviation Week.
When asked if he was comfortable moving first despite Airbus’ already dominant position in the global commercial aircraft market, the CEO said he would welcome the chance to put more distance between his company and Boeing.
“We don’t want others to do what we are best placed to do – being strong, being able to invest, having the capacity to put engineering and financial resources into it, attracting appetite from suppliers,” he told Aviation Week. “If we move first, the supply chain will come to us. It is important to explain to suppliers that we will replace a very successful product with another successful product. We want to be mastering the time. You don’t want to do this reacting to something else.”
Faury declined to comment on the scale of Airbus’ investment in the planned replacement aircraft, or the number of employees currently working on it.
The A320 family officially surpassed the 737 to become the most delivered commercial aircraft in history in October 2025. It became the best-selling aircraft by total orders in 2019, though the 737 remained ahead in total deliveries for the following six years.
