Boeing flaunts a steady bounce back to pre-pandemic levels as the planemaker reported its July commercial orders, reflecting identical numbers with the same month in 2019.
In its commercial aircraft update, the company delivered 28 jets and received 31 orders, mostly for 737 MAX aircraft which has been growing in momentum since re-certification last November.
The orders were made from nine customers, mostly unidentified aside from Southwest Airlines, Brazilian airline GOL Linhas Aéreas, and FedEx Express.
Since the 737 MAX has entered into service after the two-year-long groundings, numerous airlines have jumped at making substantial orders for the jet in the last few months.
Southwest ordered six and GOL Linhas Aéreas ordered nine, and in June, United Airlines ordered 200 of the aircraft.
The US planemaker delivered its aircraft to 12 customers, with the highest orders from Dublin-based Ryanair, Flydubai and Aeromexico, all receiving 737 MAX jets.
There have now been 154 737 MAX jets have delivered since re-certification.
While Boeing reported growth in July, the 787 Dreamliner manufacturing issues remain an ongoing problem for the planemaker.
In early July, the US Federal Aviation Administration discovered a “nose” defect during an inspection of Boeing’s “shimming process”.
Since then, all deliveries have been halted, and Dreamliner orders continue to build up – now, there are 486 unfilled deliveries of the aircraft.
While the disruption continues, its July orders matched what Boeing reported during the same time in 2019, indicating the impacts from the pandemic are slowly shrinking.
In 2019, the planemaker also reported 31 orders – mostly from Korean Air and Qatar Airways – and 19 deliveries.
The rise follows rebounded demand in the domestic travel market in the US, while international travel remains stunted from the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19.
IBA, an aviation data and intelligence company said the rise began in June when TSA checkpoints passed 2 million over one weekend for the first time since March in 2020.
The company said it expects majority of travel will remain domestic in quarter three of 2021.
Boeing has now reported 183 deliveries this year to-date, with 270 net orders, and 257 cancellations.
Boeing’s European competitor Airbus reported a dramatic drop in orders during the month of July.
The planemaker released its orders and deliveries brief on 6 August, counting 47 deliveries to 32 customers, but just two orders to one customer.
The two orders were from budget Mexican airline Volaris for two narrow-body A320neo jets, the second highest ordered aircraft this year following the A321neo.
This marked a huge decline from June, which boasted a net total of new orders minus cancellations of 38 jets for the year-to-date.
