Boeing It does not expect to ramp up production of its best-selling 737 Max plane until the second half of 2027 due to slower-than-expected wing production.
CEO Kelly Ortberg said on Tuesday about the company’s quarterly earnings that Boeing is targeting a production rate of 52 aircraft per month in the second half of 2027. It has been manufacturing around 47 of a 737 Max aircraft per month.
Ortberg had told investors last month that stable production was taking longer than expected because the pace of production was winging it.
Boeing shares fell 10% in Tuesday trading.
“I know everybody wants it to go faster, but we’re going to do it right,” Ortberg told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau in an interview Tuesday.
Ortberg reiterated the company’s priority to stabilize production on Tuesday.
“Looking forward, expectations are rising, and they should be,” Ortberg said in a memo to staff on Tuesday. “This means raising our performance through lean improvements, productivity and efficiency in our daily work while maintaining high safety and quality.”
Aircraft production and delivery are key to Boeing’s recovery because much of the plane’s price is paid for when customers receive it.
Third quarter earnings
The company also reported Tuesday that it narrowed its losses in the third quarter, thanks to an increase in its defense unit.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, Boeing reported a net loss of $116 million, or 26 cents a share, compared with a loss of $5.34 billion, or $7.14 a share, a year earlier. Adjusted for one-time items, the company posted a loss of 34 cents a share. A year earlier, Boeing had paid nearly $5 billion in costs for its long-delayed 777X aircraft program.
Revenue rose 4% that year to $24.19 billion. Free cash flow increased to $464 million from $238 million in the third quarter of 2025.
The company’s defense unit revenue rose 15% in the third quarter from a year earlier to $7.94 billion.
Here’s what Boeing reported for the third quarter compared to what Wall Street analysts expected, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:
- Loss per share: 34 cents adjusted vs loss of 21 cents expected
- result: $24.19 billion vs $23.84 billion expected.
Boeing delivered 161 commercial planes in the third quarter, one jet more than a year earlier.
Revenue in the all-important commercial aircraft business fell 3% to $10.72 billion. The unit had a negative operating margin of 6.5% due to “a poor delivery mix, higher projected costs related to future production level adjustments and higher supply chain cost estimates,” Boeing said.
Ortberg told staff in a memo that manufacturers have “more work to do.”
Certification wins
The manufacturer has had some recent wins. The US Navy is tapping Boeing to develop the next generation of fighter jets.
And the Federal Aviation Administration last week signed off on the 737 Max 10, the largest in the Max family. This was followed by the approval of the 737 Max 7 in August and marked the final certification for the airline.