Boeing delivered 45 commercial jets last month, a decent start to 2025

As Boeing tries to recover and increase airplane production, it delivered 45 jets last month, the highest monthly total since December 2023, according to company data released Tuesday.

The January delivery total included 40 Renton-built 737 MAXs. Remarks last month by Chief Financial Officer Brian West suggest at least 10 of those were MAXs that came out of long-term storage where they had been awaiting completion of rework.

That’s a much better start to the year than last January, when Boeing delivered only 27 airplanes, including 25 MAXs, following the crisis that erupted when a fuselage panel blew out in-flight on Jan. 5, 2024.

Boeing does not disclose the separate figure of exactly how many MAXs rolled off the Renton assembly line last month. That production rate number, currently in the 20s, is a critical watch item to gauge the progress of Boeing’s recovery.

West said Boeing aims to reach 38 MAXs per month — the current cap imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration — “later this year” and then, having proven production is meeting quality standards, to get FAA approval to go higher.

For the first time since March 2023, Boeing surpassed European rival Airbus, which delivered only 25 jets in January.

To meet its annual target for last year, Airbus made a big production push in December and delivered 123 jets. Then, as in previous years, it eased off considerably in January.

On the sales front, Airbus did better with 51 net new orders in January, compared to 36 for Boeing.

Separately, Boeing orders for seven widebody 787s that had previously been removed from the official backlog as insufficiently firm were restored in January, while at the same time an order for one MAX was removed.

Notably, 29 of the Airbus orders were for widebody jets. Sales of the Airbus A350 large widebody are picking up, including 19 orders in January, posing an increasingly competitive threat in the market segment where Boeing has traditionally done better.

Boeing’s orders in January consisted of 34 narrowbody MAXs and two 777F widebody freighters.

In a financial filing last week, Boeing separately disclosed that in December it had taken 38 of the forthcoming giant 777X jets out of its official backlog as no longer firm enough according to accounting rules.

This could mean, for example, that one or more of the big global airlines that previously ordered the 777X could contractually cancel 38 of the jets on order because of the further delays to the program announced in October.

That doesn’t mean the orders are canceled. Only that the airline is contractually in a position to cancel if it chooses to do so later.

Boeing said it has 358 “firm orders” for the 777X remaining, which is 123 fewer than the number of unfilled orders listed on the company website. This indicates those 123 orders for the jet are in this fuzzy, less-than-firm status.