For the month of September, Boeing Co (Boeing) delivered just 11 aircraft, considerably down on the 25 twin-aisle jets it delivered in September 2019, bringing total aircraft deliveries for the year to 98, again greatly reduced from the 301 aircraft delivered in the first nine months of 2019. This has caused considerable cash flow problems for Boeing as the majority of the price paid for each jet is on delivery. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically hit sales for both Boeing and European rival Airbus.
September also witnessed three further 737 MAX cancellations, two of which were from the BOC Aviation leasing company. That brings the total 2020 cancellations for the MAX variant to 1,006, though this figure is reduced to 436 aircraft when including aircraft order conversions for the MAX and 448 for all Boeing jets.
According to Boeing, September's total deliveries included one P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, and three freighters: one 747 to United Parcel Service, one 767 to FedEx Corp and one 777 to Lufthansa Cargo, along with seven 787 Dreamliner jets: one for leasing company AerCap Holdings, three for United Airlines, two for Turkish Airlines and one 787-10 to Taiwan's EVA Air. During an Aviation Week podcast on Tuesday, Air Lease Corp Executive Chairman Steven Udvar-Házy said that Boeing will face the largest inventory of built new aircraft in its 104-year history, adding that “Boeing has to make some tough decisions by the end of the year on how to deal with this.”
