Boeing CEO Sets New Line’s Start Date

Boeing Commercial Airplanes is on track to start the fourth assembly line for its top-selling 737 MAX jet in early July, according to a televised interview with Boeing Corp. CEO Kelly Ortberg. “We’re adding another production line, it’s really a carbon copy of what you see here in Renton,” Ortberg told CNBC. “We’ll be loading our first airplane on July 6, ... we’ll be bringing that [Everett, Wash.] line alive.”

The new line will be critical for Boeing to meet its next targeted output rate, 52 aircraft per month. That will be five more than the current 47 aircraft/month rate that the OEM finally reached last October.

Because Boeing cannot take payment for an aircraft until it is delivered, the completion rate is critical to the organization's profitability.

As of April 2026 Boeing had a total order backlog of 4,391 for the twin-engine, narrow-body 737 MAX, and had been operating well below its own target rate thanks to the oversight restrictions put in place by the Federal Aviation Administration. That was a consequence of the quality-control and safety issues uncovered at the Renton, Wash., assembly plant following the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 midair incident in January 2024.

For now, each increase in the assembly rate must be authorized by the FAA.

“We’re trying to reset that track record, and I think we’ve done a good job as we’ve come back up here in the last 18 months and increased rate, and we’ve done it differently,” Ortberg said. “We’ve made sure that we’re not moving until the production system is stable. We’re not pushing work down the production line like we were before.”

Even with a completion rate of 52 aircraft/month, which Boeing indicates it will reach in 2027, Boeing would be carrying a seven-year backlog. In fact, the organization aims to achieve a rate of 63 aircraft/month, though it has not announced a schedule for that target. And even that may be an interim goal, as rumors circulate that 70 aircraft/month may be in sight.

"We’re always looking at further rates,” Ortberg commented in the broadcast interview. “I think right now 63 is our plan. We will look at that to understand where our constraints are, what the resilience is of the supply chain, but that's a study activity right now."

While analysts and investors focus on the higher production rate that the new line in Everett, Wash., will make possible, the more immediate effect will be the assembly capacity for the forthcoming MAX 10 version, the longest and highest-capacity version of the twin-engine narrow-body jet series, which is on track for certification by the Federal Aviation Administration later this year. Over 1,200 of the outstanding orders involve the 737 MAX 10.

Boeing’s three lines at Renton, Wash., will continue to assemble the 737 MAX 8 and 9 versions.