These are aircraft which failed in the marketplace, but may have been technically sound. For aircraft which failed to work at all, see List of famous failures in science and engineering.

Airbus A318 and A340-200: Sales were lower than Airbus expected.

Avro Canada:

Avro Arrow cancelled in production when the Canadian government bought Bomarc missiles instead.

Avro Jetliner lack of commerical interest then lack of production capacity prevented prototype from proceeding further.

Boeing flops: The Boeing 717, 737-600, 747SP, and 757-300 failed to receive the orders that Boeing originally expected. The 737-600 is still for sale, however, and as the development cost was shared with other 737 models, it might not be considered a flop in the traditional sense. The Boeing 767-400ER, while receiving only a few orders, wasn't a flop because it was intended to be a niche aircraft for Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines to replace their Lockheed L-1011 and McDonnell Douglas DC-10 fleets.

Bristol Brabazon: A giant airliner that carried too few passengers, albeit in great luxury, rather than many passengers in less space. Consequently it was too expensive and the arrival of smaller but faster jet engined airliners finished any commercial chances.

Convair CV-880 and CV-990: Both were commercial disasters as they only offered five-abreast seating, and were easily out-competed on price by the Boeing 720 which was based on an existing aircraft type.

Dassault Aviation Mercure: This aircraft had an extremely limited range and as a result only ten were put in service, by the French domestic airline Air Inter.

Douglas Super DC-3: An attempt to improve the famous Douglas DC-3, only three were sold as large numbers of war surplus C-47s were available for about States dollar|$" target="_blank" >^*8,000 each. The Super DC-3 cost $200,000.

VFW-614: Another small, short-range jet, notable for its unique over-wing engine installation. Only 16 were built.

Lockheed L-1011:The aircraft was a technically sound design (indeed, more advanced than the competing McDonnell Douglas DC-10). However, the cost of the development of the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine caused Rolls-Royce to go bankrupt, and delayed the programme. In the end, with only 250 frames sold, and 500 needed for the project to break even, the L-1011 resulted in a loss to Lockheed of $2.5 billion, or $10 million per aircraft. Lockheed left the civil airliner market after the failure of the L-1011.

McDonnell Douglas MD-87 and MD-90: Both failed to receive orders as compared with the Boeing 737 family and Airbus A320 family, both of which had high-bypass turbofan engines which burned less fuel than the low-bypass engines of the MD-87.

Northrop F-20 Tigershark: This fighter aircraft was designed as a private venture for export, but failed utterly as air forces wanted the more prestigious F-16 Fighting Falcon used by the United States Air Force, despite the F-20's lower cost.

Saunders-Roe Princess: A post-WWII attempt by the famed English aircraft firm at reviving the luxury flying boat at a time when speed was becoming critical.

Spruce Goose: Only one prototype was built of wood by Howard Hughes's Hughes Aircraft. It had the largest wingspan of any plane ever built (97.5 meters.)

Supersonic transports: Boeing 2707, Lockheed L-2000, Tupolev Tu-144, arguably Concorde

Aviation lists | Commercial failure lists