Boeing’s 2021 deliveries are on track to more than double from last year, Dreamliners still on hold
A Boeing Co. Dreamliner 787 plane with AirEuropa livery moves past the company’s final assembly facility in North Charleston, South Carolina, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016.
Travis Dove | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Boeing said Tuesday it delivered 34 new planes to customers last month, putting it on track to more than double 2020’s tally this year.
New net orders totaled 91 in November, most of them 737 Maxes, marking the 10th consecutive month that new sales outpaced cancellations.
Boeing delivered 302 aircraft this year through November, already close to twice as many as the 157 it handed over in all of 2020 during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic and when the worldwide grounding of its 737 Max after two deadly crashes lasted for most of the year. Before the pandemic, in 2019, Boeing delivered 380 planes to customers.
China, one of the last countries to maintain its grounding of the Max, earlier this month approved a plan that could allow the planes to fly again. Boeing in late October said Chinese airlines account for about one-third of the roughly 370 Max planes Boeing had in inventory.
Other challenges remain, however. Deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner planes have been suspended for much of the past year as Boeing works through manufacturing flaws, hampering its recovery and complicating the scheduling plans of big customers, like American Airlines.
Last week, American said in a filing that it will have to trim its long-haul international flight schedule for next summer because of the delays.
