Boeing abandons its 500-jet 737 delivery goal

Boeing has abandoned its goal of delivering 500 737s in 2026 after concluding it will need longer to make a higher production pace stick. The company had expected to stabilize output at 47 of the narrow-body jets a month; it now says that milestone will not arrive until early 2027, with a further rise to 52 a month planned only in the second half of that year. The immediate bottleneck is wing production, which has not kept up with the planned increase. The reversal matters because 737 deliveries are the core test of whether Boeing can turn its huge order book into revenue and cash during its long recovery, and investors sent the shares down about 10%.