Boeing May jet deliveries rise 33% as Airbus keeps lead

Boeing’s May delivery tally offered a sharper picture of the company’s recovery than any management pitch could. The planemaker delivered 60 commercial jets in the month, up 33% from a year earlier, and 51 of them were 737 MAXs, the strongest monthly total for that model since production restarted after last year’s strike.

Even so, the headline number came with a caveat: Airbus delivered 81 aircraft in the same month, keeping its lead intact. Boeing’s year-to-date deliveries reached 250 by the end of May, compared with Airbus’ 262, a reminder that the U.S. manufacturer is still playing catch-up even as output improves. Boeing’s backlog remained enormous at 6,178 aircraft, showing demand is not the problem. Execution is.

The May figures also showed how fragile the production ramp still is. Boeing delivered only six 787 Dreamliners in the month, as certification delays tied to premium seats continued to slow handovers. Earlier in the year, a wiring issue delayed delivery of up to 25 737 MAX jets waiting on final transfer to customers, underscoring how even a relatively small defect can distort monthly totals and expose lingering quality vulnerabilities.

Orders pointed to steadier commercial interest, but not unqualified momentum. Boeing booked 27 gross orders in May, including 14 737s that will be converted into military aircraft for an unidentified customer and 10 787s for Lufthansa. After 16 737 MAX cancellations, Boeing finished the month with 11 net new orders and 295 net new orders for the first five months of 2026. That is a workable pipeline, but not a runaway one, especially with Airbus also reporting 379 gross orders in May.

The company is now betting that production can keep climbing without reviving the same problems that slowed it in the first place. Boeing plans to raise 737 output from 42 aircraft a month to 47 this summer, and Kelly Ortberg has said the company is already running at that pace. Boeing also said a fourth 737 line, the North Line, will begin operations in Everett, Washington, on July 6. That expansion is meant to harden the recovery, not just increase the count.

The broader test is whether Boeing can sustain higher deliveries while rebuilding trust with regulators, airlines and suppliers. Boeing finished 2025 with 600 commercial deliveries, and its 143 deliveries in the first quarter of 2026 showed the year was already moving ahead of that pace. May’s jump suggests progress, but Airbus’ lead and Boeing’s continuing certification and quality bottlenecks show the recovery is still incomplete.