Boeing’s airplane deliveries are the highest in 7 years. Now it’s about to pick up the pace

Boeing is set to report this week that it delivered the most airplanes since 2018 last year after it stabilized its production, the clearest sign of a turnaround yet after years of safety crises and snowballing quality defects.

Now, the aerospace giant is planning to ramp up production.

“It’s a long road back from a … shall we say, a rather dysfunctional culture, but they’re making big progress,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace industry consulting firm.

Boeing was forced to scale back production in recent years following two fatal crashes of its popular 737 Max aircraft in 2018 and 2019 and a midair blowout of a door plug from one of its planes in the first week of 2024. The Covid pandemic snarled airplane assembly at both Boeing and its chief rival, Airbus, with supply chain delays and loss of experienced workers, even after the worst of the health crisis subsided.

Boeing’s leaders, including CEO Kelly Ortberg — a longtime aerospace executive who came out of retirement to take the top job months after the midair door plug accident — are gearing up to increase production this year of its cash cow 737 Max aircraft and the longer-range 787 Dreamliners.

That could help the manufacturer, the top U.S. exporter by value, return to profitability, as analysts expect this year, territory that was out of reach for seven years as its leaders focused on damage control and were stuck reassuring frustrated airline executives who were awaiting late planes.

Their tone has changed as Boeing has become more predictable and increased production, with the Federal Aviation Administration’s blessing. In a sign of the FAA’s increased confidence in Boeing, the agency in September said Boeing could issue its own air worthiness certificates before customers receive some of its 737s and 787s after years of restrictions.

Boeing’s commercial aircraft business is its largest unit, accounting for about 46% of sales in the first nine months of last year, with the rest coming from its defense and services business. Boeing last reported a full-year profit in 2018.

Investors are optimistic for further improvement. Boeing shares have gained 36% over the last 12 months, outpacing the S&P 500‘s nearly 20% advance.

“Boeing is definitely better and more stable,” said Bob Jordan, CEO of all-Boeing airline Southwest Airlines, in an interview Dec. 10.

The company is scheduled to outline its production plans for 2026 later this month when it reports quarterly results on Jan. 27.

For Boeing, the recent turnaround has taken place largely on the assembly floor.

Under Ortberg, the manufacturer has slashed so-called traveled work, in which assembly tasks are done out of order, to avoid costly mistakes. The company has made other manufacturing changes, as well, including added training.

The National Transportation Safety Board in June said inadequate training and management oversight had been among the problems at the company, according to its investigation into what led to the door plug blowout in January 2024.

On Dec. 8, Boeing also completed its acquisition of fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems, which Boeing had spun out of the company two decades ago. It now has more direct control of the crucial supplier.

Boeing handed over 537 aircraft in the first 11 months of last year. It reports December deliveries on Tuesday, but Jefferies estimates the company delivered 61 commercial jets last month, 44 of them Boeing’s bestseller, the 737 Max.

Boeing delivered 348 aircraft in 2024 and 528 in 2023. Last year’s total would still be far off the 806 airplanes it handed over in 2018.

Last October, the FAA raised its production cap on Boeing’s 737 Max from 38 a month to 42. (The FAA required its sign-off after the door plug accident.) CFO Jay Malave said at a UBS conference on Dec. 2 that he expects the company to get to that rate in early 2026. Ortberg told investors in October that further rate increases are on the table, in increments of five planes.

Handovers to airlines in 2026 will likely be new production, compared with clearing out older inventory, Malave had said. Boeing is also likely to produce about eight Dreamliners a month as of early this year, he added.

Deliveries are key for airplane makers, because airlines and other customers pay the bulk of an airplane’s price when they receive the aircraft. Boeing’s chief competitor, Airbus, is scheduled to report 2025 orders and deliveries on Monday.

Still, several planes that were expected to already flying passengers aren’t certified yet, including the Boeing 777X as well as the Max 7 and Max 10 variants, depriving Boeing of cash and driving up costs.

Southwest is awaiting the delayed Max 7, the smallest plane of the Max family. The model is important for airline routes that have lower demand so airlines can avoid oversupplying the market with seats, pushing down fares.

Southwest CEO Jordan last month said that he doesn’t expect the airline to fly the Max 7 before the first half of 2027 as Boeing certification work continues. Boeing at one point expected it to enter service in 2019.

“They’re still very short in terms of delivering the aircraft that we need, but I’m glad to see the progress on the Max 7,” Jordan told CNBC.

Orders for both Boeing and Airbus jets look solid, with demand set to continue outstripping supply into the next decade, Bernstein aerospace analyst Douglas Harned said in a note last week.

Airbus outpaced Boeing in deliveries last year, though Boeing appears to have outsold its European competitor in new orders.

Through November, Boeing logged 1,000 gross orders compared with 797 from Airbus. Airline customers have started to look beyond this decade, snagging delivery slots into the mid-2030s as they plot out growth and international expansions.

On Wednesday, Alaska Airlines said it is ordering 105 Boeing 737 Max 10 jets, the longest aircraft of the Max group. Alaska fleet chief Shane Jones told CNBC the order is a sign of “our confidence in the Max 10 certification” as well as “our confidence in Boeing and their turnaround and their ability to produce quality aircraft on time.”

Alaska also exercised options for five 787 Dreamliners for more international routes just over a year after it acquired Hawaiian Airlines — a combination that handed Alaska more Dreamliners and Airbus A330s to reach for destinations that it couldn’t get to before, like Japan, South Korea and Italy.

The wide-body aircraft market is now picking up steam, said Ron Epstein, aerospace analyst at Bank of America, with orders starting to get handed over faster to customers.

International travel, especially at the high end, has been particularly strong in the years after the pandemic as travelers splash out on vacations around the world. More and more global airlines are looking at snagging long-haul jets like Boeing’s Dreamliner and Airbus’ A330 and A350s for the coming years, heating up the wide-body airplane market, analysts said.

Globally, airplanes flew nearly 84% full in November, the highest level on record, according to the latest data available from the International Air Transport Association, an airline industry group.

With travel demand still robust, orders to replace older jets and secure new ones will continue to fuel growth.

“The magic, if you will, of air transportation is until somebody comes up with a transporter, you know, [like] ‘Star Trek,’ where you sort of vaporize and show up someplace else, we’re going to be flying,” Epstein said.