By Scott Hamilton

Jay Malave, EVP and CFO of The Boeing Co. Credit: Boeing.

March 17, 2026, © Leeham News: Boeing’s deliveries in the first quarter may be lower than originally forecast, but will catch up throughout the remainder of this year, the company’s chief financial officer said today.

Jay Malave said that a quality defect on the 737 line affected about 25 airplanes. The defect was spotted by Boeing and involves scratched wiring traced to a miscalibrated machine at a Boeing facility.

“We’ve got about a population of about 25 aircraft that are impacted by that, so they’ll have to undergo some level of rework,” Malave said. “You’re talking around three days of rework, so not a significant amount. We have resumed deliveries as of last week. The impact here is really one of timing.

“We’ll see about 10 aircraft we were expecting to deliver around 120 737s in the first quarter, so we’ll slip about 10 of those deliveries into the second quarter. [The impact is] fairly limited in the grand scheme of things.”

Deliveries of the 787 will be slower and lower than hoped due to the timing of certification for premium-class interiors.

Rollouts good, timing is slower

Malave said that rollouts of the 787 have been “pretty good” for January and February, “but deliveries have been a little bit lighter.”

Boeing will deliver about 15 aircraft this quarter, compared with an expected 20.

“The build is happening, so we’re really not changing the production cadence. The factory’s been, for the most part, unaffected, so we continue to expect to deliver 90 to 100 aircraft this year. It’s a timing issue as well. And a little bit lighter in the first quarter, but we’ll catch up,” Malave said.

Everett line

Boeing expects to activate the new 737 production line in Everett this summer.

“We’re getting the tooling and equipment in place. We’re going through training. Our employees are being trained in the Renton factory, and that’s ongoing,” Malave said. “That’s been happening for a few months now. We expect that we’ll start our first aircraft build in the summer.

“The stands are in place. The line is ready to go. It’s going to be an exact replica of Renton lines, so there will be no change for those employees.”

Malave said that some employees are coming in from Renton. Some will come from the former shadow factory in Moses Lake (WA), where hundreds of 737s were stored during the 21-month grounding of the airplanes. And some will be new employees who are in training today. “It will be a mix of experienced employees that will work in tandem with all the employees,” Malave said.

“It provides not only just the ability to increase our rate, [and] also provides resiliency in the production system because now we’ll have two sites producing and delivering our 737s.”

Malave said it will take several months to build the first aircraft, and then Boeing will induct a second. “Sometime next year we’ll bump up to a rate two, and it will go from there.”

MAX 7 & 10 certification

Certification of two 737 family members, the MAX 7 and 10, has been a slow, arduous process. Certification is expected later this year.

“The good news on that program is that we have all of the flight testing envelope has been approved by the FAA, so it’s a matter of completing the flight testing. The remaining things, things like autopilot and the engine anti-icing that we implemented last year, have to go through the flight testing program as well,” Malave said. The advanced angle-of-attack system and a number of aircraft systems, capabilities, and functions must be tested. Boeing expects to complete these sometime this summer.

“We’ll be in a position where we’ll be able to provide the appropriate documents and paperwork for the FAA for them to do their analysis upon,” Malave said. “There will also be some reviews related to what I call engineering process reviews to validate that your validation program ties all the way back to your original requirements. That will take place this year as well. “We’re still on track to have these aircraft certified towards the second half of this year, and we’ll start delivering next year.”

777X Certification

Certification of the 777X has also been an arduous process, delayed for years following the FAA’s review of Boeing’s processes and its own performance in the wake of the 2018-19 MAX crashes, which cast a shadow over Boeing and the FAA.

“[Certification is] not as far along as the 737, but it’s still on the right pace,” Malave said. “We had approval for the TIA-3, which was the next big phase of flight testing. There are two more that we need to get approval for, and we’re waiting for the next one very shortly.  Flight testing is ongoing, so it’s not like we’re paused in any way. We have a number of flight test assets that can handle or are configured for the different flight test program approvals that the FAA gives us so that we can run all of these programs concurrently.”

Boeing expects to receive certification late this year and begin delivering aircraft in 2027.

Production and Delivery Rates

Malave said once the 777X is certified and production can begin on a normalized basis, Boeing will assemble the 777X at a rate of about five/mo. “There’s discussion about potentially taking that higher, but for the time being, we’re right around five, and that’s something that we’ve been able to demonstrate before on the legacy 777 program.” The 777 Classic’s peak production rate was 8.6/mo. The 777 composite wing factory has a production capacity of 10/mo.

The 737 is currently being produced at a rate of 42/mo. It will go to 47/mo later this year. The Renton factory will be capped at 47, and the Everett line will absorb rates above this number. Rate 52 is the next expected rate. Everett will be able to reach 15-17/mo, Boeing’s 737 general manager said previously.

The 787 line should go to rate 10/mo by the end of this year.