Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Boeing ponders 16/mo production rate for 787
By Scott Hamilton
July 16, 2025, © Leeham News: Boeing is considering boosting the production of its 787 widebody jet to 16/mo, LNA has learned. This record rate would be at its Charleston (SC) plant and would exceed the previous high of 14/mo split evenly between its Everett (WA) facility and Charleston.
Boeing 787-9. Credit: Boeing.
The Charleston plant currently has enough space to produce 12 787s per month, a 2020 analysis by LNA concluded.
Related Article
Boeing expanding Charleston plant
In December last year, Boeing and the South Carolina governor announced that Boeing will spend $1bn to upgrade and expand the plant. Neither revealed what the expansion was for. Now, information obtained by LNA from the supply chain reveals that Boeing is studying the record production rate by the end of this decade.
Boeing declined to comment, citing the quiet period before officers discuss the 2Q2025 earnings on July 29. At a Bernstein investors conference on May 29, CEO Kelly Ortberg said that Charleston needed to be expanded to produce more than 10 787s a month. Boeing currently is producing 7/mo.
In 2006, Boeing pondered rate 16. However, it peaked at 14/mo in 2018-19. Once the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020, Boeing sharply reduced the rate to as low as one-half 787 a month.
Through June, Boeing had 1,001 787s in backlog: 33 787-8s (3.2%), 696 787-9s (69.5%) and 272 787-10s (27%).
Production slots currently are sold out to about 2030. Largely because of the pandemic and resulting supply chain disruptions, which continue, there is a significant shortage of supply from Boeing and Airbus for widebody (and narrowbody) airplanes in the coming decade.
777-9 Entry-into-Service
Separately, the certification of Boeing’s largest aircraft, the 777-9, is anticipated by the end of this year. According to the supply chain, entry-into-service is targeted for June next year.
There are about 30 777-9s in inventory at Paine Field, where its widebody plant is located. Most await engines. The first has been stored since 2019. All need to be brought up to date with any system, software or other changes that were developed since 2019.
I’m not surprised to read Boeing are considering higher 787 rates. Widebody aircraft are in structural deficit right now as a consequence of high retirement rates through Covid and very low production rates since. Even when Airbus reach their planned 12 A350 in 2028 (which includes 2 freighters), together with four A330 they will only be building as many passenger widebodies as they were in 2019. As presently planned Boeing’s 10 in 2028, plus a handful of 777s, will also mean they would be building fewer widebodies than in 2019. With an estimated deficit of around 750 widebodies, seems to me that higher rates are needed if airlines are to have enough passenger widebodies in future.
Indeed.
But let’s see how (macro)economic and geopolitical factors pan out.
If economic growth cools substantially — as currently predicted — then airlines are going to see a (further) revenue hit…in which case it may not be long before we see deferrals/cancellations.
And trade wars / tariffs can also adversely influence order books.
Remember: the current circus is going to extend into 2029 🙈
Widebodies are mainly used on international flights. Current isolationist trends, not only in the US isn’t helping demand. F. ex I live in Colombia & Avianca are advertising transatlantic flights at prices I’ve never dreamed about, looks like repurposing of equipment from US flights to EU
The same company that had so many issues with quality, u think needs to be going faster?
This.. and “by the end of the decade” = meaningless claim from BA.
Trying to bump the stock price via PR, methinks.
It is pretty odd in my view.
The high rates previously were never sustained. 777/787 or MAX.
Something always comes up and clearly we are in even more volatile times.
I have stated before, I thought rate 14 was nuts.
If they want a short term boost then do it in Everett where they have the space.
The only real rate production there is the 777-ER and the 777-X. Put the 787 in the 747 build or the wrap around line they had or move the MAX-10 to the wrap around line.
Can the risk sharing partners ramp up production? e.g. wings or the real question do they want to?
Not just the wings.
Leonardo has a fuselage section and I think co tail production.
Subaru (Fuji) makes the wing box so that is two mfgs in Japan to ramp major assemblies.
Spirit would have to ramp up as well (nose) – and that is just the big parts of the supply chain.
How much own experienced staff do they have now vs. contractors? Many 787 were flown to Everett to be fixed.
One reason I think Everett can do it is the experience group they still have there.
A lot quicker than training up people in Charleston when they have just got stable and doing a ramp up.
Lets hope these forecasts become reality. If we would create a table with past reported expected production rates since 2020, we would see that Boeing has been off for many years / executives.
In the first 6 months Boeing delivered 37 787’s a rate of 6.2. I don’t know how many 787s came out of storage in that period, 15? There is a tendency to give Boeing the benefit of doubt, because, well.. not so much.
It’s essential for Boeing to boast 787 production, because cash flow requires it. Trump won’t help forever. Airbus, sitting in the position it’s currently in, isn’t stimulated to innovate.
COMAC will up production like only the Chinese seem able to, Airbus won’t sit on its hands and schedule new types (e.g. A225, A322, A350UltraF, MRTT NEO). They have the initiative.
Boeing needs TO/Cash to move on, next to recovering.
@keesje:
Having watched the China programs for a long time, I don’t see them ramping up production per their other rapid build projects (High Speed rail was impressive).
I don’t know what the hold up is, it does not seem to be money.
And while I know some think its anti Chinese I have nothing against the people of China. I don’t like their government nor do I like our current one.
Government and capability to get things done can be different. That getting things done can be at a cost in quality.
I don’t see that in their high speed rail system that exceeds anything we have by leaps and bounds. If their are any crashes they are few enough to not get into the press.
Boeing have delivered 42 787s to date in 2025 (including 5 already this month). 19 of those were ‘built’ in 2024 or earlier (by which I mean had a first flight recorded prior to 1 January 2025; 5 are 2020 ‘build’, 6 are 2021 ‘build’, 1 is 2022 and 7 were 2024). To date in 2025 there have been an average of 5 aircraft ‘built’ per month (again using first flights), up from 3 in 2024. In April/May/June it was 6/5/6 so I think the data indicates progress towards 7 which I think is the target this year. There are 26 aircraft which have flown but which await delivery, including 5/6/1/7 with first flights recorded in 2020/2021/2022/2024. 16 of these 26 are for Lufthansa, awaiting the Allegris business class certification. All of this data comes from Cirium’s fleet database.
Finally, the pace of ramp up for the narrowbody C919 at COMAC is painfully slow. The widebody C929 is apparently in development but not expected to be in service until well into the 2030s. Widebody production will remain with Airbus and Boeing for at least the next 15 years and given significant replacement and slower growth demand, I believe there is headroom for Boeing to manufacture 787 at Rate 16 if they can find a path to do so.
As always with Boeing, the question is, can they execute? They seem to be doing better on that front, but the jury is still out.
I honestly would rather see them miss their production targets, and keep their quality KPI’s and metrics high. We already know where the alternative path leads, if production is prioritized, and that’s to disaster.
Also for the record, as a long-time defender of Dave Calhoun here, I was extremely disappointed to find he had misled the board, shareholders and everyone else on Boeing SMS and safety culture progress. While there were some mitigating factors involved, the picture he painted was so different from the reality, that it was completely inexcusable. And frustrating in the extreme.
The NTSB took 800 pages of testimony from Boeing labor and management, as well as Spirit labor and management. It’s all in the docket for the Alaska Airlines blowout incident. It takes awhile to get through it, but it’s recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand what happened at Boeing.
I’m glad we have the NTSB who have the power of discovery to document things objectively. There’s a lot to be learned from the acquired information. The picture it paints isn’t pretty, but unless you drag that stuff out into the daylight, there will be no improvement.
@Rob:
Curious what you saw in Calhoun at all.
While the details of his failures have come out, that he was failing was clear from the start I felt.
Classic not only not involved in the company but actively avoided even the appearance of managing it.
Having followed the downward spiral of Boeing, Calhoun was not responsible for it. He was responsible for it continuing.
That is the group that either endorsed or actively abetted gross nelgelct6 to the point the Company was almost liquidated.
I think Mulienberg was a dupe outside his capability, so rather than malicious it was getting to the level of incompetence for him.
Granted that is my view and I realized early in my career that I did not belong even at a foreman level. I could fill in but long term I was only interested in fixing things not dealing with people.
Calhoun said all the right things in the quarterly reports and media calls. He said Boeing was making progress on SMS and instituting safety culture. Also said they were compliant with the FAA requirements om those issues. The FAA had accepted that as well, it was only after the blowout incident and they began interviewing people, that the truth came out.
That’s why the DoJ reopened the fraud DPA, there was a requirement that Boeing report its status, which they plainly had not done truthfully.
At the NTSB hearing with the FAA, they grilled the FAA safety compliance expert as to how that had happened. I really liked her, no BS, just the unvarnished facts.
She said that there was a complete disconnect between lowest and highest levels of management at Boeing. At the floor level there was no impetus to adopt the new systems, if anything there was resistance from labor. In the interviews, labor said without exception they would not report problems in the new safety systems because of fear of retaliation. Zero trust.
But the supervisors told upper management they had implemented all the systems as requested. Which was technically true, but almost no employee used them. They were quite literally “useless”.
She also said that although the FAA had mandated SMS at Boeing as early as the 2015 settlement, in fact FAA had no regulatory rulemaking or framework for manufacturing SMS until 2022, and the rule did not become law until after the Alaska incident in 2024.
When asked about this, she said an airline SMS, which had been in place for almost 2 decades, does not necessarily apply to manufacturing. And so Boeing was waiting on the FAA for guidance during that time.
I thought she characterized it well, that it was necessary to develop a new framework from scratch, and FAA was working with Boeing (as the largest US manufacturer under their jurisdiction) to develop the new rule. So partial blame on FAA.
But Boeing having the information disconnect and management reporting compliance where there was none, was totally on Boeing.
So as I mentioned there are mitigating factors for Calhoun. He was waiting on FAA rules and guidance, and he may have believed what his supervisors told him. But ultimately it’s his responsibility to talk to labor and have an understanding of the reality of the floor. Its part of the diligence requirement of his job.
I’ve heard good things about Kelly Ortberg in this regard, he appears on the floor and talks to people. Also asks them if they are using the new systems, if those systems work, and if they have concerns about management and retaliation. That’s wise because if labor doesn’t cooperate with the changes he’s making, he’s sunk. He seems to understand that, whereas Calhoun seemed to take it for granted.
@Rob:
As usual interesting reading.
Having been a shop floor type of mechanic/technician, the things I was looking for in Calhoun I never saw. Lots of lip service but absent as well.
One of the interesting things about WWII (from Allied side) UK and the US Generals had their own people they sent out to see what was going on in the field. Pretty well impossible for an Army General to do that but his direct reports (Colonel I believe) could and did. It did not go over well but it was at least a cross check.
Ortberg seems to be a lot better and I think their progress reflects that, I don’t expect him to be perfect though I was disappointed at his initial lack of involvement on negotiation in rega4rds t o the strike.
Someone made a good case maybe they had to go through that (Possibly Leeham)
One of the shocking statements to me that came out was t hat the FAA was just doing paper audits of Boeing, not floor presence which from their rhetoric they had it covered.
Reading about the turmoil of re-work on Spirit fuselages and incoming parts for Spirit and Boeing, paper audits do not cut it and they would have known that.
How good is their oversight of Charleston?
FAA was inspecting the paperwork that accompanied the aircraft as it went down the line, and then inspecting the aircraft before the airworthiness certificate. And they were doing floor work audits but only at the major status reporting points, not to the degree they are now, where they could randomly audit any task. And they have now audited the full line to create a benchmark.
The reality is they can’t watch everything, but the KPI’s are intended to flag areas where they then need to focus their efforts, if there is a decline. And they removed the incentive to speed up the line by reducing quality. If quality falls off, the line instead has to slow down.
KPI’s are now in place for every line, including Charleston.
It mind boggling to me that they could fail to see the quality issues coming from Spirit and the staff on hand to fix them.
Not to absolve Boeing of causing the issues or allowing them to keep on, but wow. FAA should not have to, but if and when they do, they truly failed until after the blow out.
There was no FAA approval of fuselages at Spirit. That was really on Boeing to reject the substandard work in Washington.
However if you read the NTSB interviews, the picture that emerges is of creeping non-conformances, that slowly overwhelmed the Boeing lines. And at each juncture, Boeing committed more resources to fixing the problems within the line, rather than slowing production. That was the crucial error.
They did that because they thought it would be temporary, they would get Spirit under control. But they never did, which is why they finally had to reacquire Spirit.
If you have a fuselage come in, and you are fixing it father and farther down the line, until finally you are still fixing it on the tarmac outside the building after assembly, that’s an unsustainable process. But that’s where they were, until the whole thing collapsed after the Alaska blowout incident.
The solution has never really changed, you slow production until you get the root of the quality problem resolved. But after two extended shutdowns for the MAX and for COVID, Boeing didn’t want to slow production, they wanted to increase it.
That’s where Calhoun was at fault, he should have recognized what was happening on the floor. In the end the FAA did it for them, but it should never have come to that.
Non-compliance was always a problem. During WWII the factory producing the most compliant B-17’s were Douglas Long Beach. With todays fine measurement instruments, cameras and software any non-compliant part or assembly should be caught quickly. Especially now with all critical parts fully defined in 3D CAD systems with tolerances (mostly Catia) the data is there.
The quality problem is more related to process than assembly or parts. The Alaska incident was initiated by rivets installed at Spirit that were excessively countersunk. They are supposed to be flush with the surface.
When Boeing flagged this, the fuselage was in the Flow Day 1 station. The Spirit team decided to add layers of paint to build the rivets out flush.
As the aircraft moved down the line, Boeing inspected again and rejected the repair, requiring the rivets be replaced.
So the aircraft moved again, and they had to find someone to remove the plug door. The aircraft moved again, and they replaced the rivets. The aircraft moved again, and Boeing approved the repair, but they had to find someone to reinstall the plug door.
Finally the aircraft reached the last station before going outside, and the plug door was still removed. So again they searched for someone to install it. Finally finished a day before it went outside, but we know what the outcome was.
This points to the process as the root cause. The fuselage should not have been shipped from Spirit until it was compliant. Boeing finally instituted that rule, but it sharply cut the production rate. That’s what they were trying to avoid, but it ends up being counterproductive, if you don’t address root cause.
The ultimate fix was for Boeing to reacquire Spirit.
I never was on the 737 factory and only a visitor to the Everett.
What I cannot fathom is if as an FAA inspector in whatever capacity or label, they could not see what was going on.
My take is FAA put deliberate blinders and using the narrow focus to not acknowledge what was going on.
Behind any process are people and they talk and the presence alone of more and more.
Boeing never put anything in place to deal with Spirit, they just yelled at them from what I can tell and then shrugged as Spirit found they were not serious.
Sooner or latter a huge failure was going to occur. I am grateful that this time no one died.
I do take a different view from the reports but I don’t think its not valid.
Sticking your head in the sand to avoid an issue is a very short term strategy per the FAA.
I can understand Calhoun. All greed and no care for what he was inflicting on the public. Criminality that is never prosecuted because the system is designed not to.
Good content, views, Transworld, Rob.
Both Boeing and Airbus have projected a need of ~40,000 aircraft (that seems to be the number they both hover around), over the next 20 years.
About 80% are NB’s, so some 8,000 WB’s, which leads to 400 / year, give or take.
Since 2019, Boeing has delivered double-digit 787’s, starting in 2020:
53, 14, 31, 73, 51, and 37 so far in 2025.
For the 777 line:
26, 24, 24, 26, 14 and 20 in 2025.
The 767F variant goes away in 2027, but there are 28 to come. Nominal.
There is a lot of catching up to do (assuming a 50/50 WB split) on the Boeing side of things. The past five years has them shorting the market in deliveries from 100 to 150 units.
There is sense and space, for this expansion. Not only for future deliveries, but to play some catch-up ball.
@Frank P:
Its well written but my issue is
1. Cost
2. Duration
As I noted above, something always comes up. Currently as the infamous
Bryce has noted we are in even more than normal iffy times.
If Boeing moved to add a temp line in Everett for the 787, I would be fine.
For rate 16 you are talking at lest one new assembly plant, equipment and people trained when you have a sub use of Everett.
While can they execute is a valid question, I think under Ortberg they can.
Its a matter of time and a lot of money when they don’t have the money.
With the backlog they have the luxury of maxing (pun) out all their ops and not having to invest in more than some tooling for the MAX-10 in Everett.
Probably Everett is a no go as they had pulled out and are not going to admit they were wrong (board more than Ortberg).
This is good news for Boeing. Purely as a safety precaution, I think they need to test all the swithes world wide including inventory.
https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/07/16/air-india-found-no-issues-with-boeing-787s/
One guy noted that as horrid as it is, the people that died are gone and nothing changes that. If we can eek out a lesson from this, then there is some gain for the rest of passengers.
That Switch than can two different configuration continues to shake me. You should never have critical item like that regardless of Switch or not that can have multiple configurations.
The core can be shared but the Lever/Knob on top should never be to ensure there is no mix up. Those parts shared in aircraft is unsettling.
A pilot flipped both switches off. That was the core problem, not some fanciful switch design change.
https://www.newsweek.com/faa-boeing-declare-fuel-switches-locks-safe-air-india-crash-2098445
@Duke:
I understand that and fully believe that as I have stated.
My adder on this is, there is an identical looking Switch in the system with a different (no) lock gate setup. No one has said where it is in an aircraft or what it is used for (assume its in an aircraft could be wrong)
As far as the Switch goes, by mistake or deliberately you could get one or even possibly two into the same Throttle quadrant. Again likely to be caught but odd things do happen.
I have gotten more than one part that was labeled right and was the wrong one.
One had been destroyed in the failure, new one did not work in that application and it took weeks of phone calls and descriptions going back and forth to get it to where they realized it was the wrong one. Someone had put the wrong one in with the right ones and I got the wrong one.
It was not malicious but the parts puller paid no attention to its companion parts looked different.
Its really bad practice to have something like that in the system. Get it out to ensure no mix ups or even deliberate aka counterfeit parts.
AS far as execution goes, Boeing has major things on its plate and expansion should be the last think on their list if at all.
The F-47 alone is huge. T-7A as well. 777X ramp up to Everett capabilities already planned and tooled for. KC-46A is for sure going to be extended (those F-47s are going to need fuel). F-15EX is ramping up and has been ordered in more numbers.
E-7 may ramp up, Europe wants to replace the AWACs though with the USAF trying to back out I don’t know Europe will go for it.
Spirit integration is going to be a big deal as well as the divestment to Airbus portion. That is not only attention but costs as well.
Boeing needs 5 years of stability.
As you know , Im a big Boeing fan, but I dont have stars in my eyes like the future defence programs you mention.
There just isnt the revenue stream like there is for volume commercial aircraft.
The F47 for example , Defence budget spending for that program is going to be shared with the engine maker and the various sensors, radar etc. The airframe development and production on its own is smallish, maybe Boeing gets the systems software development, but do they farm that out too as Im sure they dont have that in house.
St Louis site is ending F-18 program , finally and the F15 is on again off again, and the T-7 is a co production with Saab. A 15 ship annual contract for KC-46 is only around $2.4 bill
Boeing Global services is a $20 bill pa revenue, thats probably much more profitable than BDS at $24 bill revenue last year.
I don’t see the F-47 as different than a Commercial Aircraft, its not a fixed bid contract in this case. All aircraft mfgs pay for Engines (or the airlines do) and the avionics and pumps and generators and APU etc.
I believe the KC-46A is two per month.
F/A-18 is a wild card as the USN has to decide to buy more, get more F-35C or start out of the carrier business, the Squadrons are getting thin.
4th Gen like the F-15EX are now looked on as, hmm, good enough for a lot of things. The USAF has a lot of ageing fighters and the F-35A is not replacing them.
No military program is high production but also higher costs and its looking better for Boeing assuming they can execute.
NATO wants to replace 14 E-3 until 2035. That is about 2 E-7 per year.
I’m not so sure about KC-46 comparing it against a MRTTneo.
KC-46A is not going to be bought in Europe.
I could see Europe going with SAAB because of the lack of us buy on te E-7 and the mess OA is creating.