Boeing Sees Clearing Skies Ahead as Jetliner Sales Soar
In fact, Boeing’s been soaring through somewhat smoother skies ever since the calendar turned over to 2025.
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Here’s something Boeing hasn’t experienced in a long, long time: cruising altitude.
Fresh off a humongous sale to Uzbekistan Airways, US diplomats engaged in trade negotiations with China said on Tuesday that the aerospace giant is on the verge of a “huge” sale to the Middle Kingdom.
The Seatbelt Light is Off
The Uzbekistan sale, announced by the White House on Monday, is nothing to sniff at. Under the more than $8 billion deal, Uzbekistan Airways will purchase 14 of Boeing’s wide-body 787-9 Dreamliner jets with options to buy up to eight more. The White House boasts the order will support 35,000 Boeing jobs. It’s the latest sign that Boeing has put its nightmarish rough patch behind it.
In fact, Boeing has been soaring through somewhat smoother skies ever since the calendar turned over to 2025, though you did still need to remain seated with your seatbelts fastened from time to time:
- Earlier this month, Boeing announced that it had delivered 57 jets in August, an increase from 48 deliveries in July, marking the strongest August for the company since 2018. That put the company’s total deliveries so far this year at 385 through August, eclipsing the 348 planes it delivered through all of 2024.
- Meanwhile, the company said it has received 725 gross orders in the year through August, against 46 cancellations or conversions. That places its entire backlog at 5,994 aircraft.
Around The World: That backlog may soon get even bigger. According to US Ambassador to China David Perdue, the company is on the verge of a “huge” sale to China, ending a sales drought in the country since 2017. While Perdue didn’t offer details, Bloomberg reported in August that Boeing was in talks to sell as many as 500 aircraft to China as it seeks to double its commercial aircraft fleet to 9,755 in the next two decades. Sounds huge indeed. It’d be the continuation of a trend for the administration, which has helped Boeing secure sales in Qatar and Indonesia so far this year, with a deal to sell Boeing planes to Turkey potentially being hammered out later this week. It’s the kind of door-opening that Boeing can live with.
