Boeing delivers 26 aircraft in January as cancellations continue to outpace new sales

Boeing said Tuesday it delivered 26 aircraft to customers last month, but order cancellations continued to outpace new sales as the manufacturer still has problems with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Chicago-based company sold four new aircraft in January, 747-8 merchants from the airline Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, and recorded six cancellations.

The Boeing aircraft delay that had been ordered but not yet delivered was 4,016 at the end of the month, including routine adjustments for orders the company considers dangerous, below 4,055 at the end of December. In January 2020, Boeing’s backlog was 5,393.

The 26 deliveries included 21 of its 737 Max aircraft. Boeing resumed deliveries of besieged planes to airlines in December after federal regulators lifted the 20-month grounding resulting from two fatal crashes that killed 346 people.

The company did not deliver any 787 Dreamliners, the wide-body aircraft, the delivery of which to Boeing delayed customers, so it could increase inspections after encountering problems with certain seams on the aircraft. Last month, the company said it expected to resume deliveries of these aircraft later in the first quarter, forecasting “very few, if any,” to be delivered in February.

The Boeing problems that began with the 737 Max have increased with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has undermined demand for new aircraft. But the challenges aren’t limited to just the production issues of the 737 Max or the 787 Dreamliner.

Last week, Boeing said it reduced its latest aircraft, the 777X, by more than a third, after revealing that it does not expect the wide-body aircraft to enter service until the end of 2023. This is more than two years later than previously anticipated and driven by weaker demand and intense regulatory control of aircraft following the crashes of the 737 Max.