Airbus’ commercial aircraft services sales rose almost 10% last year to reach €5.45 billion ($6.43 billion).
This meant that services, which include spare parts sales, accounted for 11% of the OEM’s total commercial aircraft revenues in 2025.
Some of those services originated from the Airbus Lifecycle Services Center (ALSC) in Chengdu, a joint venture between Airbus, local government in China and aircraft storage and dismantling specialist Tarmac Aerosave, which was planned to operate at full capacity from 2025.
In addition to teardowns, the ALSC can handle maintenance, conversions and upgrades from its 717,000-m2 (7.7-million -ft.2) facility, which opened in 2024.
Further growth in services sales is likely this year after Airbus completes the acquisition of used serviceable material supplier Unical Aviation via its Satair subsidiary.
The purchase is expected to close in the first half of this year and will include Unical-owned Ecube, an aircraft storage and disassembly specialist with six operational sites and offices across North America, Spain and the U.K.
Boeing’s aftermarket sales, meanwhile, ticked up in the fourth quarter of 2025 as the OEM ended the year with a record backlog of $30 billion for Boeing Global Services (BGS), which encompasses both commercial and defense services, with both registering double-digit profit margins in the three months to Dec. 31.
That made it the only profitable arm of Boeing’s operations in the final quarter, with Commercial Airplanes and Defense, Space & Security recording negative operating margins of 5.6% and 6.8%, respectively.
Comparing the two airframers’ aircraft services performance is tricky, as Boeing does not split out the commercial segment of BGS, which reported $20.9 billion in revenue in 2025, up roughly 5% year on year. Airbus’ consolidated services, meanwhile, totaled €12.6 billion across its commercial, defense, helicopter and space activities.
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