Customers of the embattled aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co canceled a total of 355 orders for the company's 737 Max aircraft during the first half of 2020.
Boeing revealed the official figures on Tuesday, hinting at its ongoing struggles to restore its reputation and to keep its operations afloat amid the continued grounding of its planes and the travel demand slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
For more than a year, Boeing has been trying to get its once best-selling 737 Max airplanes back into the air. Following the two fatal crashes that led to the grounding, Boeing has been struggling to assure its customers that its aircraft are safe to use. Throughout its continued hearings and negotiations with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other regulators, Boeing has been losing customers, most of which have shifted their orders to its European rival, Airbus.
Just last month, the company revealed that it had received an additional 60 canceled orders from its airline and leasing company customers. For the first six months of 2020, Boeing had delivered a total of just 70 airplanes to its customers. This represented a 71 percent drop from its deliveries over the same period last year.
The companies that canceled their orders last month were Aviation Capital, Avolon, and BOC Aviation. Aviation Capital canceled its order of five 737 Max planes, while Avolon canceled its order of 17 planes. Singapore's BOC Aviation canceled its order of 30 planes. Boeing stated that there were other companies that had also canceled their orders but it did not name those companies.
Apart from lingering concerns over the safety of its airplanes, Boeing attributed the decline to the global collapse in air travel demand, which had forced its customers to cancel their orders or defer their shipments. With the drop in orders, Boeing is currently under a lot of financial pressure given how most customers do pay most of the purchase price of the airplanes once they are delivered.
Boeing did remain optimistic and positive about its outlook. The company revealed that it was able to deliver 10 aircraft to customers in June, a big jump from the four planes it delivered in May and the six it delivered in April. Boeing also revealed that it had managed to book an order for FedEx Corp for one of its 767 freighters.
On Tuesday, Boeing's share prices inched upward by around 1 percent to $177.24 per share. Since the start of the year, the company's stock has fallen by about 46 percent.
