The other airline with a fatal Max crash, Indonesia’s Lion Air, has yet to receive a new Max delivery. Boeing reported the delivery as part of its June orders and delivery report. Overall, it was also the busiest month for 737 Max deliveries since the grounding ended in late 2020, with 43 of the planes delivered to customers. It was also the busiest month for all types of commercial airplane deliveries from Boeing since March 2019, with a total of 51 deliveries. It’s a sign that demand for the plane is returning to pre-crash levels. Boeing has so far delivered 443 of the 737 Max jets since the grounding ended, with 181 of them delivered so far this year, up from 105 delivered in the first half of 2021. The Ethiopian did not respond to a request for comment on receipt of the delivery. Its site includes four 737 Max planes in its fleet and another 24 on order. It’s unclear how the June delivery affects those numbers. The airline also has 27 older versions of the 737 Max in its fleet. Boeing has faced a myriad of problems in recent years, beyond the drop in demand for passenger planes that occurred during the pandemic. It is still awaiting approval to resume deliveries of the 787 wide-body passenger planes that have been halted due to quality control issues. Deliveries are crucial to Boeing’s performance, as it gets the most money from airline sales at the time of delivery. Analysts polled by Refinitiv forecast another small loss for Boeing when it reports second-quarter results later this month.
