Business

/

ArcaMax

Boeing's 737 Max passes 737 NG as company's best-selling airplane

Lauren Rosenblatt, The Seattle Times on

Published in Business News

Boeing’s 737 Max family is now the company’s best-selling airplane, surpassing its predecessor, the 737 Next-Generation, or NG.

After booking 100 orders for the 737 Max in June, Boeing has recorded a total of 7,206 orders for the Max family, the company said Tuesday when announcing its monthly orders and deliveries total.

The 737 NG, which is no longer in commercial production, has recorded 7,159 orders. Boeing still books a handful of 737 NG orders monthly to be used as a derivative for one of its defense products.

The milestone comes after Boeing launched its 737 Max family in 2011, abandoning plans to build an entirely new plane in an effort to keep up with its European competitor Airbus. The Max became Boeing’s fastest-selling airplane, with its popularity rarely wavering despite two fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 and a midair fuselage blowout in January 2024.

Boeing's 737 Max backlog clocked in at nearly 4,400 planes at the end of June, according to the company's tally.

The aerospace manufacturer is working to stabilize 737 Max production at a rate of 47 planes per month, a metric that the company has been building up since the midair panel blowout.

The Federal Aviation Administration capped Boeing’s monthly Max production at 38 planes per month shortly after the incident and approved the company’s first rate increase to 42 planes per month in October.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in May that the regulator had approved the next rate increase to 47 planes per month, a rate the company is now working to maintain.

In June, Boeing delivered 42 737 Max planes, a proxy for its production rate because some nearly finished planes aren’t delivered to customers in the same month that they roll out of the factory.

That’s a decrease from the month before, when it delivered 51 737 Maxes.

Boeing delivered just 34 Max planes in April and 33 in March as it dealt with a machining issue that created small scratches on some 737 Max wires.

 

Meanwhile, Boeing last month drastically hiked its delivery of 787 Dreamliners, its smaller widebody plane built in North Charleston, South Carolina. Boeing’s 787 delivery rate had recently slowed as it faced regulatory delays in certifying interior seats, leaving some planes stuck waiting outside the factory.

In June, Boeing delivered 13 787s, compared with six in May and April and seven in March.

Boeing also delivered one 737 NG and three 767s to its defense division in June, as well as three 777 freighters and two 767 freighters to carriers and leasing companies.

Boeing’s 64 total airplane deliveries in June are almost in line with the month before, when it delivered 60 airplanes, and a significant increase from April and March, when it delivered just 47 and 46 airplanes, respectively.

In the first half of 2026, Boeing delivered 314 planes, its highest delivery count for that period since 2018, when it delivered 378 planes.

Boeing, so far, has lagged behind Airbus, which delivered 89 planes in June and 351 planes in the first six months of the year.

But Boeing surpassed Airbus on orders, booking 121 gross orders in June compared with Airbus’ 71.

Boeing booked 108 Max orders in June and recorded eight Max cancellations, bringing its total order count to 100 Maxes. In addition, Boeing booked four orders for 737 NGs, four for the 777 freighter and five for the yet-to-be-certified 777-8 freighter.

Adjusting for accounting principles that move orders between Boeing’s backlog and its reserve, the company booked 88 net orders in June.

Its backlog went from 6,178 as of May 30 to 6,202 at the end of June.


©2026 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus