EVERETT — The head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes says the company’s 737 line’s production rate could go to 52 a month in 2018.
“The demand is there,” Ray Conner, president of BCA, said Tuesday at the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference in Laguna Niguel, California.
Boeing and its European competitor, Airbus Group NV, have been in a tight battle for the booming market for single-aisle commercial jetliners.
Boeing currently makes 42 737s a month in Renton, and plans to raise production to 47 a month in 2017. The Chicago-based company has previously said it is considering going to 52 in 2018 or 2019.
Conner told investors that he is comfortable with the increase sometime in 2018, and that the supply chain has the capacity to keep pace.
“We’re looking to go to 47 a month in 2017,” he said. “We see a lot of pressure to go higher than that.”
“We’re narrowing in on 52 a month production rate.”
He then later said that he is comfortable with that coming “somewhere in the 2018 timeframe.”
Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.
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