Boeing will miss its goal of delivering 500 jets this year. Its 737 factory is speeding up more slowly than planned. The company now expects to hit its target pace in early 2027. Its shares fell nearly 10% on the news.
What Boeing said
The update came with Boeing's results for July to September, released on 27 October. Chief executive Kelly Ortberg said the company would miss its 737 production and delivery targets, Reuters reports. Finance chief Jay Malave confirmed on a call with analysts that Boeing will not reach 500 deliveries in 2026.
Boeing wants to build 47 of its 737 jets a month. As recently as May, its leaders said they would reach that pace this summer. Now the date has moved to early 2027.
Why the factory is behind
Wings are the biggest bottleneck, Ortberg said. Boeing also has to raise output in Wichita, Kansas. The old Spirit AeroSystems plant there makes the body of the plane. Boeing bought Spirit last year, partly because of manufacturing defects there.
A new 737 line in Everett, Washington, opened in July. That line needs to reach five jets a month. Only then can Boeing climb to its next goal of 52 a month, in the second half of 2027.
The company says it will not rush. "We're going to be smart about this, stay disciplined, and the outlook is there," Ortberg said. Before he arrived in 2024, Boeing struggled for years. Reuters says it rushed output at the cost of quality.
The numbers
Boeing handed over 161 commercial planes in the quarter, one more than a year earlier. That brings the total for the first nine months to 475. Of those, 367 were 737s.
Revenue rose 4% to $24.2 billion, according to Boeing's results. The company still lost $116 million. That is far smaller than its loss of more than $5 billion a year ago.
Defense and services did better than the jet business. Boeing's defense unit posted an operating margin of 6.2%, helped by the sale of HRL Laboratories. Services earned about $1 billion.
Why investors reacted
Jet deliveries are a major source of Boeing's cash, so fewer deliveries means less money coming in. Boeing now expects to reach its goal of $10 billion in yearly free cash flow in 2029. That is a year later than investors expected, Reuters reports, citing LSEG data.
The share drop was Boeing's worst day since April 2025.
The good news in the report
The update was not all bad. Demand for Boeing planes is strong. Orders waiting to be filled reached a record $745 billion, including more than 6,300 commercial jets.
US regulators have certified two new versions of the 737, the MAX 7 and the MAX 10. The US Navy also picked Boeing to design and build its next fighter jet, the F/A-XX.
Elsewhere, Boeing's 787 line is steady at eight jets a month. Its larger 777X remains on track for a first delivery in 2027.
