Boeing’s comeback year: orders surge, deliveries recover – but the long climb continues

After half a decade marked by crisis management, regulatory intervention and damaged confidence, the year 2025 is emerging as Boeing's most important inflection point since the aftermath of the 737 MAX grounding.

For the first time since 2018 the narrative is no longer dominated solely by what went wrong, but increasingly by evidence of stabilisation and selective recovery.

With approximately 1,000 gross aircraft orders logged in the first 11 months of the year, and deliveries set to reach 560-570 units, Boeing is on track for its strongest annual performance in seven years.

The quality of that demand matters as much as the volume. Widebodies have returned to centre stage, with an exceptional 351 orders for the 787 and a further 173 for the 777X, providing rare long term visibility into production well into the next decade.

That more than half of these orders came from just three strategically critical customers - Qatar Airways, Emirates and Turkish Airlines - underlines both Boeing's enduring relevance in the long haul market and the concentration risks that still shape its commercial profile.

Deliveries, while improving, tell a more nuanced story.

Output is stabilising and gradually rising, but remains well below historical peaks, and heavily weighted towards North American customers.

Freighters continue to be a differentiator, reinforcing Boeing's structural advantage over Airbus in the cargo segment at a time when widebody passenger markets are only selectively recovering.

Crucially, this year 2025 is less about headline numbers than about credibility. Boeing has made tangible progress on safety, quality and production discipline, easing some regulatory constraints and improving supply chain visibility.

At the same time, the company continues to absorb significant losses, navigate fraught labour relations, and confront further certification delays - most notably on the 777X.

This report assesses why 2025 should be seen as the year Boeing turned a corner, and why that corner still leads onto a long, uphill road toward sustainable profitability and restored industry leadership.