Fall Travel Flop Undercuts Boeing 737 Max Return
Even with the grounded jet on a comeback path, Boeing can't start to rebuild its cash flow without a meaningful recovery from the airlines.
Boeing is beholden to big customers like Southwest Air, and they aren’t sounding too upbeat.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergBoeing Co.’s 737 Max may be on track to finally return to commercial service later this year, but the plane’s biggest customer isn’t eager for fresh deliveries.
Southwest Airlines Co. doesn’t expect to take any new Max jets this year, Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said in an interview with Bloomberg News. The airline had previously said it would add no more than 48 of the planes to its fleet through the end of 2021, and it reiterated that plan in a filing on Thursday. But the back-end weighting of these deliveries puts significant pressure on a post-pandemic travel recovery that has been volatile and remains highly uncertain in the absence of a widely available vaccine.