Boeing’s aircraft deliveries in April slid to the slowest pace in more than two years and the company logged negative monthly orders due to deals cancelled by recently shuttered Canadian airline Lynx Air.
Boeing delivered 24 aircraft in April, the fewest in a month since February 2022, and logged new orders for only seven jets, the manufacturer said on 14 May.
The reduced delivery pace comes as Boeing slowed 737 Max production to address nagging quality problems following the 5 January in-flight failure of a 737 Max 9’s door plug. Boeing has been holding up its 737 production lines to minimise the amount of so-called travelled work, which is work performed later than intended during the production process.
Boeing’s deliveries last month included 16 737 Max – among them the 1,500th Max delivered, to Irish carrier Ryanair. The company in April also delivered four 787s (two to All Nippon Airways and one each to Hawaiian Airlines and Chinese carrier Juneyao Airlines), two 767 Freighters to UPS and two 777Fs, one each to Eva Air and Qatar Airways.
Boeing logged 33 aircraft order cancellations last month, including 29 737 Max that had been on order with Lynx, a Canadian start-up discount airline that stopped flying in February, citing financial pressure.
Another customer, which Boeing declines to name, cancelled orders in April for two 777-9s and for two 787-10s, Boeing says.
The company offset those losses by landing new orders last month, also from an unidentified customer, for two 777-9s and two 787-10s. El Al also ordered three 787-9s in April.
The activity left Boeing with negative 26 new orders for the month.
However, the company also made accounting adjustments that shifted orders for 28 aircraft into its backlog. Those orders had previously been housed in an accounting bucket reserved for orders Boeing suspects might not close.
Boeing ended April with 5.646 jets in its backlog a the end of April, up from 5,668 at the end of March. Its backlog includes 4,340 737s, 99 767s, 489 777s and 718 787s.
