Boeing orders, deliveries down in September amid ongoing MAX grounding

A Boeing 737 MAX in final assembly. (Boeing)

The prolonged grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX has continued to bite the aerospace manufacturer hard with deliveries down by almost 50 per cent so far in 2019, new figures show.

Boeing’s monthly orders and deliveries figures for September, published on Tuesday (US time), showed the company delivered 302 commercial aircraft delivered in the nine months to September 2019. This was 48 per cent fewer aircraft compared with the 568 delivered in the same period last year.

Aviation analysts now expect Boeing to deliver about 440 aircraft in calendar 2019, close to half the record 806 aircraft delivered in 2018. Before the fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 in March and led to the global grounding of the 737 MAX, Boeing had targeted about 900 deliveries for calendar 2019.

In addition to deliveries being stopped – completed 737 MAXes have instead been parked – while the type remains grounded, Boeing has also suffered the loss of 90 737 MAX orders following the collapse of Jet Airways earlier in 2019.

Boeing has said previously that it hoped the 737 MAX would resume flying before the end of calendar 2019.

The orders and deliveries figures for September showed a converted order for the 737 MAX from an undisclosed business jet customer, the first order for the type since four in April.

Boeing said it delivered 26 aircraft in September, down from 87 in the same month a year ago. It was in September last year that Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines took delivery of their ill-fated 737 MAX aircraft.

The first Boeing 737 MAX entering final assembly at Renton. (Boeing) — A 2015 file image of a Boeing 737 MAX on the final assembly line. (Boeing)

Figures for Boeing on the order front were also grim. In the nine-month period to September net orders were a negative 84.

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The negative figure was largely due to MAX cancellations and contractual changes plus the cancellation of 24 787 aircraft.

Also, some totals were adjusted in line with new Accounts Standards Codification (ASC) rules in the United States that relate to the timing of booking revenue from customer contracts.

In the month of September, Boeing had 25 confirmed orders, including eight 787s for Air New Zealand and 15 767 tankers for the United States Air Force.

This was well short of the 65 orders in September 2018.

At the end of September 2019, Boeing’s net delivery backlog stood at 5,487 aircraft made up of 4,406 737s, 19 747s, 105 767s, 428 777s and 529 787s.

A file image of Airbus A350-900 MSN 002 F-WWCF. (Wikimedia Commons/Julian Herzog)

Airbus reports increase in deliveries for September

It was a happier situation at Airbus, which said on Tuesday (European time) it delivered 71 aircraft to 42 customers in September, up two on the same month a year ago.

This brought total deliveries so far in 2019 to 571.

Airbus said in a statement that it handed over the 9,000th A320 family aircraft in September.

The aerospace giant expected to deliver between 880 and 890 aircraft in calendar 2019. This would require a record fourth quarter tally.

Airbus logged orders in September for 41 wide-body and single aisle jets across its A320neo family, A220 family and A330-900 aircraft.

The Airbus A220-300 lands at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport. (Airbus)

This brought its total orders for the nine months to September to 303 gross orders (127 net orders after cancellations).

After taking the latest orders, deliveries and cancellations into account, Airbus said its backlog of jet aircraft remaining to be delivered was 7,133 aircraft at 30 September 2019.

The single-aisle total comprised 5,768 A320s and 435 A220s, while the wide-body total involved 601 A350 XWBs, 278 A330s and 51 A380s.