Boeing Delivers 314 Jets in First Half of 2026, Best Since 2018, Still Trails Airbus

Boeing delivered 64 jetliners in June, according to Reuters, up from 60 in May and matching June 2025. That brought the company's first-half 2026 total to 314 aircraft, a 12% increase over the same period last year and its best first-half delivery total since 2018.

European rival Airbus still beat Boeing on every measure that matters. Airbus delivered 89 jets in June alone and 351 for the first half of the year, according to Reuters. Boeing remains the number-two commercial planemaker in the world. No amount of good-news framing changes that math.

What's actually driving the numbers

Boeing's June deliveries broke down to 42 737 MAX jets and 13 787 Dreamliners, per Reuters. Five of those 787s had been sitting around waiting on seat certification for Riyadh Air, the Saudi startup carrier, before finally clearing that hurdle.

The company also delivered three 777 freighters and five 767s. Three of those 767s are headed to Boeing's defense division for conversion into KC-46 aerial refueling tankers. Boeing isn't just an airline supplier. It's a defense contractor too.

Boeing is ramping up 737 MAX production from 42 jets a month toward 47, according to Reuters. Reuters reports Boeing's deliveries are expected to rise further in the second half of the year as that output increase continues.

Orders tell a mixed story

Boeing booked 121 new orders in June against 8 cancellations, for a net of 113. Through the first half of the year, the company has 408 net orders after cancellations and conversions.

The 737 MAX has now logged 7,206 total orders, edging past the 7,159 orders the older 737 Next Generation received over its production run, according to Reuters.

Not every order story was clean. Canadian carrier WestJet canceled orders for six 737s in June. Those same six jets got picked up by Aviation Capital Group, a leasing company, which plans to lease them right back to WestJet. Same planes, different paperwork. It's a reminder that "cancellations" and "orders" in these monthly reports don't always mean what a casual reader assumes.

The skeptical read

Getting back to 2018-level first-half deliveries is a milestone, not proof of a finished turnaround. Production ramps and order backlogs are hard numbers, not spin. A 12% year-over-year delivery increase and a record order total for the MAX are facts Reuters reported directly from Boeing's disclosures, not marketing language dressed up as data. Whether that translates into sustained financial health is a separate question from whether the June and first-half numbers are real.

Boeing hasn't said when it expects to close the gap with Airbus, and Airbus shows no sign of slowing down. The next test comes when Boeing reports second-half delivery numbers and whether the 737 line actually reaches 47 jets a month as planned.