Saudi Arabia’s biggest-ever plane order isn’t going to Boeing

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1. “The Saudia Group announces today the largest deal in the history of Saudi aviation,” he said in a speech at the Future Aviation Forum in Riyadh, referring to the contract with Airbus.

   But, in a press release, the organizers of the Future Aviation Forum said the new order totaled $19 billion.

   Despite having a backlog of orders amounting to more 5,600 commercial jets, worth $529 billion, Boeing cannot make planes quickly enough each year to turn a profit as it’s working to address its quality issues.

   Meanwhile, Airbus, reported an order backlog of almost 8,600 aircraft at the end of 2023
   and posted a profit of €3.8 billion ($4.1 billion) for the year.

   But Boeing has been struggling ever since fatal crashes of its 737 Max aircraft in 2018 and 2019 resulted in a 20-month grounding of its best-selling plane. The company was also hit by the pandemic, which brought air travel to a near-standstill for months and caused deep losses at most of the airlines that buy Boeing’s planes.

   Since the start of the grounding in 2019, Boeing has reported adjusted losses totaling more than $31 billion.
   Since the beginning of this year, its stock price has tanked by almost 28%.