Hello All,
After looking at Airbus’ first-quarter deliveries, this post analyzes Boeing’s. While the European OEM is struggling to ramp up production as envisioned, the American one had challenges of another magnitude: quality controls that culminated in the Alaska Airlines incident.
Boeing wants to produce 52 737 MAXes, three 767s, five 777s, and 10 787s monthly. How far from that goal is the American OEM currently?
Not just the 737 MAX struggling
The below table shows first quarter aircraft deliveries at Boeing for the four major programs (we exclude the 747 because the low-rate production ceased).
| Year | 737 | 767 | 777 | 787 |
| 2020 | 5 | 10 | 6 | 29 |
| 2021 | 63 | 5 | 6 | 2 |
| 2022 | 86 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| 2023 | 113 | 1 | 4 | 11 |
| 2024 | 67 | 3 | 0 | 13 |
| YTD 2024 vs. 2023 | -46 | 2 | -4 | 2 |
| YTD monthly average | 22.3 | 1.0 | 0 | 4.3 |
All four production lines at Boeing delivered at rates lower than half the long-term goal. The 737 MAX had 46 fever deliveries compared with the previous year. Without the resumption of deliveries to China, the tally would have been even worse.
There were no 777 deliveries and 767s, despite an official rate of 3 per month, only had three deliveries. Dreamliner deliveries remain well below their pre-Covid levels despite the boost from old inventory.
Lack of ramp-up visibility
While Airbus is not ramping up production as quickly as envisioned, three out of the four programs are roughly on track. The question mark for the A220 is due to the ongoing discussions related to Boeing’s envisioned purchase of Spirit Aerospace. Airbus might have to purchase Spirit’s Belfast plant that produces the wings.
The situation at Boeing is far more problematic. The FAA is asking Boeing to immediately remediate 737 MAX production issues. There are potential issues with the 777 and 787 production lines following whistleblower allegations that could delay production.
Until the FAA removes Boeing’s production cap it is hard to see when Boeing will be able to ramp up 737 MAX production. If the whistleblower allegations are founded 777 and 787 production could slow or be halted like for the Dreamliner in 2020.
While Boeing fixes its mess, Airbus will pull ahead in the deliveries tally. The European OEM is way ahead in single-aisle deliveries but could soon durably overtake for twin-aisle deliveries too. The latter could allow Airbus to close its historical market share gap with Boeing in the segment.
EPSILON AVIATION 
… I wonder what portion of the 787 deliveries were actually from the “ghost factory”, set up to “rework” frames with issues. During the investors call, Boeing talked about having about 60 (?) 787 frames in that stream. How many new frames were produced is different from how many were delivered. Deliveries are a more important number. But those 60 frames represent strong future deliveries.
… Boeing was aiming to close the ghost factory by the end of the year.
… Again, from the investor call earlier this year, Boeing was going to deliver those frames, along with 737 frames, and push the cash into 777X frames to be delivered the next year. There are photographs online of 777X frames accumulating, the wings upturned.
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When looking at planespotters.net data (https://www.planespotters.net/special/boeing-787) you see 9 tails with a number 1150+ deliveries, which indicates those that aren’t from the “ghost factory”. The 787 is now around 3 per month… below the 5 /month advertised.
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FYI … the Boeing webcast for first quarter results in on April 24th.
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