Boeing lowered its full-year aircraft delivery target after the planemaker said it needs more time to move to a higher, sustainable production rates, prompting the shares to slump the most in 18 months.
Boeing shares sank 9.8% in morning trading.
The company will come short of the 500 full-year 737 aircraft production target and deliver closer to 90 787 Dreamliners, the lower end of its guidance, executives said on a call with analysts on Tuesday. Boeing dropped 10%, the most since April 2025.
“I’ve said before, our progress is not always going to be perfectly linear, but we continue to improve and I’m confident we are on the right track,” Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg said on the call after Boeing announced third-quarter earning that fell short of investor expectations.
Boeing’s commercial airplane division, the company’s biggest by revenue, posted a $697 million loss, compared with the $360.8 million deficit expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Still, the figure was a fraction of the loss reported a year earlier, when Boeing booked a $4.9 billion charge on its delayed 777-9 widebody jet program.
Earnings rose at the defense and space arm, partly assisted by the sale of a research laboratory that Boeing had co-owned for more than two decades, in addition to a surge in global defense spending that fueled higher volume.
The diverging earnings at Boeing’s commercial and defense units highlight the complex challenges Ortberg and his team face in turning around the US aerospace giant, whose financial health was beset by a series of quality and safety crises over the last decade, including several fatal crashes.
Boeing reiterated that it intends to start delivering its 777-9 widebody next year, putting it about six years behind schedule.
“Looking ahead, expectations are rising, and they should,” Ortberg said in a message to employees Tuesday. “We have a stronger foundation than a year ago, but we also have more work to do to deliver on our backlog, strengthen our culture, and improve how we work every day.”