Boeing sales tumble as the company gets no orders for the 737 Max for the second straight month

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 742 points –
Boeing sales tumble as the company gets no orders for the 737 Max for the second straight month
apnews.com
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Despite the recent slow sales, Boeing still has a huge backlog of over 5,600 orders

I wonder what those orders are? They could be mainly orders for extra bolts.

Not sure if this is serious. Boeing and Airbus are booked with orders for the next several years. They both could not get a single new order and would have work to do for the next half decade.

Several years is an understatement. At current rates of production it will take at least 14 years to fulfill all orders.

Not sure if this is serious.

if you are really not sure whether this:

They could be mainly orders for extra bolts.

is serious, then i recommend to not attempt crossing a street without supervision 😜

its a valid question.

β€œAre they orders for whole planes, or for anything boeing might produce such as bolts?”

Does that simplify it for you? Careful crossing the streets

They are for whole planes. As these sales figures always are.

FYI same goes for car sales.

its a valid question.

no, it is not.

do you really think that article talking about number of ordered planes suddenly switched to number of spare parts? does that sound logical to you? if you don't recognize such obvious sarcasm, you really shouldn't try to deliver burns to others, you'll just burn yourself in the process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries

long story short: the numbers mean whole aircraft. i hope it is simple enough for you.

for extra bolts.

Extra self sealing stem bolts probably

100 gross of self sealing stem bolts!

Those are orders for the 737. Not parts, newly constructed aircraft. Airbus's similary sized A320 has a backlog of 7197 according to wikipedia.

I know actually building a plane is hard, but this is crazy. They are bigger, but still not dissimilar from 60s aviation. I know that safety standards are strict (not for Boeing apparently though), but still - what, nobody else can satisfy the demand for passenger airplanes?

Passenger planes being built mostly by Boeing and Airbus, consumer chips being produced mostly by TSMC, this is a very strange outcome really. As if the average human thought monopoly is good for them.

Boeing is the industry in the military-industrial-complex. Commercial jetliners are an ancillary product for them.

No, their airlines are not an ancillary product. They are their main product. According to Boeing's earnings reports, the commercial aircraft segment of the company made up 56% of total revenue in 2018, 42% in 2019, 27% in 2020, 30% in 2021, 38% in 2022, and 43% in 2023. The rest of their revenue is split between the Defense, Space and Security segment, and the Global Services segment.

Prior to 2017, the vast majority of the earnings for the whole company came from the Commercial Airplanes segment. Since then, that segment has been operating at a loss. Since 2022, both Defense and Commercial Airplanes have been operating at a loss.

If you're curious you can look up Boeing's 10-k form. Page 56 has the revenue breakdowns.