(New York) Boeing’s deliveries suffered in April from the reorganization of quality control and safety in the American aircraft manufacturer’s production, after a series of problems for more than a year and an in-flight incident in January.
In total, according to data published Tuesday on the group’s website, Boeing has returned twenty-four planes to their owners, including sixteen copies of the 737 MAX, its flagship aircraft, two 767-300s, four 787 Dreamliners and two 777s in freighter version. .
In addition to its actions to improve the quality of its production, which slowed down its production rates, the group also suffered from persistent problems in its supply chain.
But he nevertheless has reason to rejoice, because he reached two symbolic thresholds in April.
First of all, the delivery of the 25,000e commercial aircraft since the first example of the 700 range (a 707) was delivered in 1958 to the Pan Am company.
And Boeing also delivered its 1500e 737 MAX plane, handed over to the Irish company Ryanair.
On the orders side, the harvest was not very successful in April with seven gross orders: five 787 Dreamliner aircraft and two 777-9s.
The cessation of activity in February of the Canadian low-cost airline Lynx Air led to the cancellation in April of an order for twenty-nine 737 MAXs. For its part, the Japanese company All Nippon Airways canceled its order for seven 787-10s and two 777-9s.
Since the start of the year, Boeing has recorded 138 gross orders and delivered 107 aircraft, including 83 examples of the 737 family.
Its order book reached 6,209 aircraft at the end of April, including 4,325 for the 737 MAX.
Boeing planned to further increase the production rate of the 737, to reach its objective of fifty examples manufactured per month in 2025/2026.
But a succession of production problems in 2023 and an in-flight incident on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 on January 5 led to an investigation by the American Civil Aviation Agency (FAA). This decided, among other things, to freeze this rate at the level of the end of 2023 (38 aircraft per month).
The FAA is also investigating the Dreamliner, which has also encountered numerous production problems since 2020.
Boeing achieved its goal for the end of 2023 of producing five 787 Dreamliners per month, and was targeting ten units per month in 2025/2026.
The aircraft manufacturer was already struggling to recover after two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.