American Airlines Flight 718, the first commercial Boeing 737 MAX flight in the US since regulators lifted a 20-month link in November, takes off from Miami, Florida, on December 29, 2020.
Marco Bello | Reuters
Boeing said Tuesday it delivered 26 planes to customers last month, but order cancellations continued to outpace new sales as the manufacturer is still battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Chicago-based company sold four new planes in January, 747-8 carriers to Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, and recorded six cancellations.
The number of Boeing planes that were ordered but not yet delivered was 4,016 at the end of the month, including routine adjustments for orders that the company considers risky, down from 4,055 at the end of December. In January 2020, the Boeing arrears were 5,393.
The 26 deliveries included 21 737 Max aircraft. Boeing resumed deliveries of the besieged planes to airlines in December after federal regulators lifted a 20-month bond resulting from two fatal crashes that killed 346 people.
The company did not deliver the 787 Dreamliners, the widebody planes, whose delivery to Boeing customers was delayed, so that it could increase inspections after finding problems with certain seams on the aircraft. Last month, the company said it expects to resume deliveries of these planes later in the first quarter, forecasting “very few, if any,” delivered in February.
Boeing problems that began with the 737 Max escalated with the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected demand for new aircraft. But the challenges are not limited to 737 Max or 787 Dreamliner production issues.
Last week, Boeing said it had reduced its arrears with the newest 777X aircraft by more than a third after revealing it did not expect the wide-body aircraft to go into operation by the end of 2023. is more than two years later than previously forecast and driven by weaker demand and increased regulated control of aircraft after the crash 737 Max.