Boeing delivered 55 jets in September, up from 33 from last year, when 33,000 factory workers in the Northwest curtailed production, according to the company. The total has been broadly steady with August’s 57 deliveries.
While this has been Boeing’s strongest September since 2018, it still lags behind its rival Airbus, which delivered 73 aircraft last month. For the first nine months of the year, Boeing delivered 440 airplanes to Airbus’ 507 jets.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said last month that the manufacturer expects the 737 Max production rate to reach 42 a month by the end of the year, a step-up from the 38-a-month cap set by the Federal Aviation Administration after a near-catastrophic blowout of a door plug on a flight in January 2024.
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“I think we’re pretty aligned,” Ortberg said regarding the approval process with the FAA at a Morgan Stanley investor conference in September. “We’ve got to get this final metric stabilized. And then we’re certainly still planning to be producing at 42 a month by the end of the year.”
Boeing handed over 40 of its 737 MAX jets last month, including 10 to Ryanair, one of which marked Boeing’s 2,000th MAX delivery. It also delivered one 737 NG for conversion into a P-8 patrol aircraft for the U.S. Navy and 14 widebodies, comprising four 767s, three 777 freighters, and seven 787s. Eight aircrafts went to Chinese customers, including a 777 freighter, a 787, and six 737 MAX jets.
The planemaker also reported Tuesday net orders of 48 aircraft in September, or 96 gross sales before accounting for adjustments, including 64 787 Dreamliners with 50 for Turkish Airlines, and 30 737s for Norwegian Airlines. Turkish airlines had announced it would order 75 Boeing 787 aircraft and had completed negotiations to buy 150 737 MAX planes, shortly following U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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Reports from August indicated that Airbus’s A320 family of jets is set to edge past Boeing’s 737 lineup as the most widely delivered passenger aircraft ever. The data from aviation analytics firm Cirium, cited by Bloomberg, show the European plane maker narrowing a decades-long gap in the industry’s fiercest rivalry.
President Trump threatened to impose export controls on spare parts for Boeing airplanes on Friday. However, the tensions cooled down after a weekend of substantial communications between Washington and Beijing, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.