Boeing Co.’s Q1 2025 earnings report indicates some notable progress over the dismal 2024 results for the aircraft and defense manufacturer. Quarterly revenues rose 18.0% over Q1 2024, in line with an increase in deliveries of commercial jets, which totaled 130 during the January-March period. Also encouraging is the companies’ forecast that the production rate for Boeing 737 MAX jets will increase to 38 per month in the near future, and is on track to reach 42 aircraft/month later this year, pending Federal Aviation Administration approval.
An emerging threat to Boeing’s recovery is the prospect of a trade war. The OEM is a top U.S. manufacturing exporter, but CEO Kelly Ortberg confirmed in a cable news interview that deliveries to China have been blocked once again and some aircraft have been returned undelivered. Those jets may be delivered to other waiting customers, he noted.
The 737 MAX is Boeing’s most profitable product, with an order backlog exceeding 4,700 aircraft.
“We are moving in the right direction and making progress as we reported our first-quarter 2025 results today,” Ortberg noted in an employee memo. “From delivering more airplanes to scoring a transformational win for the fighter of the future, there is a lot of good work happening across our teams, and we are seeing positive results in the four key areas of our recovery plan that will position us for the rest of the year and beyond.”
The 737 MAX has been at the center of Boeing’s problems since 2020 – when it regained airworthiness certification and deliveries resumed to most of the world’s markets.
But an inflight structural failure in January 2024 brought the FAA into the Boeing’s Renton, Wash., assembly plant to evaluate and monitor the aircraft assembly process.
Renton was also one of the primary targets of the seven-week strike by International Assn. of Machinist workers at plants in Washington and Oregon, during September and October 2024, which reduced Boeing productivity last year.
FAA continues its oversight of the 737 MAX program, and has capped the production rate at a reported 31 aircraft/month – severely impacting revenues for the manufacturer. Raising the output to 38 would return Boeing to the production target increase it hoped to accomplish last year.
The Boeing Defense unit also posted a positive Q1 performance, with a $62-billion order backlog highlighted by the new F-47 fighter program assigned by the U.S. Dept. of Defense in March.
During the Q1 2024, Boeing posted revenue of $19.5 billion, with 130 commercial aircraft delivered. It also estimated its current commercial aircraft backlog a $545 billion, with more than 5,600 aircraft under contract.
In January, Boeing closed the book on 2024 with a loss of $11.8 billion, and that followed a $2.2 billion loss in 2023. Revenues for the year were $66.5 billion, down -14% versus 2023, illustrating the effects of the seven-week strike by workers at plants in Washington and Oregon, and the FAA’s restrictions
