The CEO of Boeing says the company will resume deliveries to China this month. Speaking at the Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference on May 29, 2025, Kelly Ortberg said the risk of Chinese carriers not accepting deliveries over the medium and long term would have had a big impact on the company. He also said the manufacturer was working through its production problems.

"China has now indicated - the airlines have indicated - they're going to take deliveries," he said. "The first deliveries will be next month [June]. We're yet to accomplish that task, but they're planning and telling us they're going to take delivery."

The Chinese government told its carriers to stop accepting Boeing aircraft in April after imposing a 125% tariff on US-manufactured goods. Among the immediate impacts, some recently manufactured aircraft ferried into China pending delivery returned to the United States for remarketing. According to ch-aviation Commercial Aviation Aircraft Data, eleven Chinese airlines and two Chinese lessors have a combined 126 aircraft on order at Boeing.

Ortberg also claimed that long-running production problems on the B737, B787, and B777 programmes were been resolved. The company is close to producing the Federal Aviation Administration-imposed monthly ceiling of thirty-eight B737 MAX and is looking to increase that to 42, pending a FAA review.

"We've talked with the FAA extensively to make sure we're aligned on what are going to be the criteria that we need to demonstrate to move to the next rate," he said. Boeing expects the B737-7 and B737-10 certification process to be completed by the end of the year, and Ortberg said it was currently finalising the inlet anti-icing design.

The US FAA also recently approved the monthly production of B787s, increasing from five to seven following a successful review. "We can get to that ten," Ortberg said but declined to say when Boeing might achieve that. "I think to go beyond that's going to require some additional investment in our facilities there," he said.

"The B777X is getting through the certification process, and then we'll be ramping that up," he said. "We would expect to have continued ramp-up in all those programmes here over the next several years to support the market demand."

"We have four [B777X] flight test aircraft now, all in flight tests," said Ortberg. "The flight tests are progressing, and progressing well. We don't have any major technical issues coming out of the flight test programme. I'm hopeful that we'll get through the certification flight tests by the end of the year."

"We have a very, very strong backlog. Our challenge is ramping up production and delivering on that backlog and making sure that we have slots available for the customers who want the aircraft."