- Boeing booked important Boeing 737 MAX order from Virgin Australia.
- Net orders remain negative due to cancellations, while deliveries fail to impress.
- Deliveries were underwhelming in November due to Boeing 787 inspections and low demand, but order profile will recover with the Boeing 737 MAX back in the game.
- I do much more than just articles at The Aerospace Forum: Members get access to model portfolios, regular updates, a chat room, and more. Get started today »
The first commercial flight of the Boeing 737 MAX after a 20-month grounding has just landed as I am writing this report, and even the first Boeing 737 MAX delivery to United Airlines (UAL) has occurred. These are just two examples of the Boeing 737 MAX gaining at least some traction in the marketplace again. The market isn’t expected to be in full recovery mode until vaccines are globally rolled out, but this is the time to start looking at how orders and deliveries develop and how the financial recovery shapes up.
In this analysis, I will use interactive dashboards developed for The Aerospace Forum to show that there is some positive MAX momentum in the November order inflow, but even for the month, net changes are still negative, and the delivery volume remains weak, but there is a reason for slight optimism.
Boeing orders November
Figure 1: Boeing orders November 2020 (Source: The Aerospace Forum)
After booking no orders in October, Boeing order inflow revived in November with 27 orders:
- Virgin Australia placed an order for 25 Boeing 737 MAX.
- As discussed in an Defense report, Japan firmed orders for 2 KC-46A tankers.
There were only 27 orders, but it was still an important month for Boeing. In any normal year, 27 orders wasn’t a great month by any means, but this is not a normal year, and the 27 orders booked added 40% to the gross order book. More important is that 25 orders were for the Boeing 737 MAX. That is a positive, and Boeing will book at least another 75 orders in December. The order from Virgin Australia for 25 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft is important, since it marks the first order after the MAX ungrounding and biggest order Boeing has booked on books now since the MAX was grounded in 2019. To that, it can be added that Virgin Australia is recommitting to the MAX, which is a sign of confidence. Virgin Australia was one of the first airlines to defer deliveries of the Boeing 737 MAX in the aftermath of the crashes, with the MAX pulling forward deliveries of the Boeing 737 MAX 10 while pushing back deliveries for the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
