The long-awaited resumption of 787 deliveries was the highlight of Boeing’s August commercial airplane activity, while 737 MAX monthly handovers appear to be stabilizing in the mid-20s—a pace that would leave the company well short of its current full-year target.
Boeing’s official figures for August show two 787 deliveries—one each to Lufthansa and KLM. American Airlines took two more 787s, but routine post-delivery customization work that Boeing is managing meant they did not go into Boeing’s books as official August deliveries. The deliveries were the first official ones for the 787 program since a single June 2021 delivery, to Turkish Airlines.
Narrowbody delivery activity remained consistent, with 28 total 737s going to customers, including 27 737 MAXs and one P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. The 27 MAX deliveries are a slight improvement over last month’s 23, but leave Boeing with significant work to do to reach its goal of at least 400 family deliveries in 2022.
Boeing delivered 231 737 MAXs in the first eight months, or about 29 per month. It would need to push out 42-43 per month from September-November to meet its target. Boeing has done that just once—June 2022’s 43 deliveries—since it re-started customer hand-overs in December 2020 following a 21-month pause. It has topped 30 monthly 737 MAX deliveries in four months—two of them in 2022.
The company is facing several headwinds in its effort to clear its 737 MAX backlog. Among them: aircraft coming out of storage are taking longer to ready for service than anticipated, and some are changing hands, forcing repainting and reconfiguration work; the prolonged 737-7 certification process has held up initial deliveries of the family’s smallest variant, once expected to take place in early 2022; and China has not resumed taking deliveries since the model’s grounding.
Boeing recorded 30 gross orders in August, including 13 737 MAX purchases—two by American Airlines and 11 by unannounced customers. Four 737 MAXs were canceled by customers in the month: two by China’s Okay Airways, one by Aerolineas Argentinas and one by an unidentified customer.
Boeing deliveries totaled 35. In addition to the 28 narrowbodies and two 787s, FedEx accepted two 767-300Fs and one 777F, while DHL and CES Leasing also took one 777F each.
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