Boeing delivered 24 737 MAX jets in March, capping the airplane maker’s slowest start to the year since the pandemic.

Boeing has been turning out fewer planes since the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout. It is well below the goal it set before the accident of producing 48 737 MAXs a month.

The company has slowed its production lines to root out quality issues and amid heightened scrutiny by federal regulators.

Boeing has delivered 67 737s through the year’s first quarter, down from 112 for the same period a year ago. That’s the lowest number since the first three months of 2021, when it delivered 63.

Boeing has said it expects to pick up the pace of production later in the year.

The jet maker delivered 24 737 MAXs, up from 18 in February. It also delivered five 787 Dreamliners.

Boeing had a backlog of 5,668 planes, most of them 737s, at the end of March.

Boeing said it received orders for 113 planes and reported two order cancellations—both for 777 freighters.

Of the 737s delivered this year, 17 have gone to China. Boeing resumed deliveries to China in January after a four-year freeze following two MAX jet crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Excerpt from WSJ
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