AT A GLANCE
This week: Boeing's 737 MAX recovery hit a milestone nobody expected this soon.
The FAA lifted the production cap. A fourth assembly line is opening in Everett this summer. Kelly Ortberg is running the company from the factory floor, not a Virginia boardroom. And there are 4,845 aircraft on the order book with nowhere near enough capacity to build them.
The comeback is real. Whether it's fast enough is a different question.
5-MINUTES READ
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THIS WEEK’S TOP STORY
Boeing’s Slowest Sprint
On April 7, Boeing confirmed it's opening a fourth 737 MAX production line at its Everett factory this summer. The first time Boeing will build a narrowbody in Everett. Ever. The 737 has been a Renton product for its entire existence. Putting it in the building where the 747 used to live would have sounded absurd three years ago.
It doesn't sound absurd anymore.
The current state of play: the FAA lifted the production cap in March. Boeing hit 38 jets per month - the rate it was stuck at since the Alaska Airlines door-plug blowout in January 2024. The target for year-end is 47 per month across four lines. The long-term aspiration is 63 per month, though Katie Ringgold, the 737 program manager, said that's "a number of years" away.
The order book tells the real story. As of February 2026: 4,845 unfilled orders. 2,200 delivered over the entire life of the program. Boeing needs to more than double its total MAX output to clear what's already been sold. At 38 per month, the backlog would take over 10 years to work through. At 47, it's still roughly 8.5 years. At the dream rate of 63, it's a little over 6.
Airlines can't wait that long. And Airbus knows it.
THE ANGLE
Ortberg's quiet revolution
The numbers are one story. The culture shift is another.
Kelly Ortberg took the CEO job in August 2024 and immediately moved Boeing's headquarters function back to Seattle from Virginia. That sounds like a symbolic gesture, and it partly is. But the downstream effects have been concrete.
Ortberg's been quoted telling employees Boeing is "not racing to a number" on production rates. A 180-degree reversal from the Dave Calhoun era, where delivery targets drove everything and quality was treated as a compliance exercise rather than a production philosophy. Under Ortberg, engineers can stop a production line without fear of being overruled by finance.
The Spirit AeroSystems re-acquisition closed in 2025. Spirit makes 70% of the 737 airframe - fuselage, thrust reversers, engine pylons, nacelles, wing leading edges. Bringing that in-house gives Boeing "nose to tail" quality control for the first time in over a decade. Whether that translates into fewer defects or just more internal bureaucracy will become clear in the next 12 months.
The FAA, for its part, still has inspectors on the factory floor and isn't pretending otherwise. The agency approved the rate increase to 42, then watched Boeing work at 38 for months before lifting the cap entirely. Trust is being rebuilt, but on the FAA's schedule, not Boeing's.
THE NUMBER
4,845
unfilled 737 MAX orders
As of February 2026. More than twice the number of aircraft Boeing has ever delivered from this program.
Ryanair alone is waiting on 500 more. United, American, and Southwest collectively hold backlogs for over 1,000 variants. And 1,300 of those orders are for the MAX 7 and MAX 10 - two aircraft with zero deliveries because neither has been certified.
At current production rates, some airlines ordering today won't see their planes until the 2030s.
QUICK HITS
🔴 HIGH
The 737 MAX 10 entered Phase 2 certification flight testing in January 2026. This is the most progress the program has made in years. Certification expected Q3 2026 at the earliest, with first deliveries to WestJet and Ryanair in early 2027. The MAX 10 is Boeing's answer to the A321neo. Every month it's delayed, Airbus wins.
🟡 WATCH
The MAX 7 certification is tracking slightly ahead, with Boeing targeting Q2 2026. Southwest has ordered 234. They've been waiting since 2019. At some point, airline patience becomes a competitive risk rather than a delivery scheduling problem.
🟡 WATCH
Airbus overtook the 737 in 2025 as the best-selling commercial aircraft family in history (measured by orders). The A320neo family now leads. Boeing's backlog is enormous but Airbus has been delivering while Boeing has been apologizing.
🟢 CONTEXT
Boeing's CFO Jay Malave described the new Everett production line as "an exact replica" of the three Renton lines. The MAX 10, being the largest and most complex variant, will be built predominantly at Everett. This isolates the new variant's learning curve from the established MAX 8/9 flow in Renton. Smart engineering decision.
WORTH READING
Boeing.com: North Line team readies Everett for 737 MAX production
Boeing's own announcement from April 7. Worth reading for the operational details: wing transport tooling, staffing approach, and the admission that 63/month is years away.
Flightglobal: Boeing's recovery gains momentum as FAA approves production increase
Best straight reporting on the FAA production cap lift. Good detail on the regulatory process and what "sustained compliance" means in practice.
Simple Flying: Will the Boeing 737 MAX 10 be certified this year?
Full breakdown of the MAX 10 certification path. Covers the engine anti-ice redesign, Phase 2 flight testing, and what Ryanair's O'Leary and WestJet are saying about delivery timelines.
Three weeks in a row covering topics that will dominate every conversation at WTCE/AIX this week in Hamburg. If you're attending, come find me.
The Boeing story is one I'll keep coming back to. Ortberg's approach is the most interesting leadership experiment in commercial aviation right now, betting that slowing down is the fastest way to speed up. We'll see if the board agrees when Wall Street starts asking about 2027 delivery targets.
Hit reply and tell me: if you're an airline with MAX orders in the backlog, how is the delay affecting your fleet planning? I want to hear from the operations side, not the press release side.
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Thanks for being here.
See you next week!
Máté
