Boeing delivered 40 commercial planes in August

Boeing (NYSE:BA) delivered 40 commercial jets in August, up five from the same month a year earlier when the aviation giant worked to resolve a defect on its best-selling 737 Max narrowbody plane.

The delivery number included 32 Max jets, nine of which went to customers in China, the most since December 2019. Boeing (BA) has finished planes in inventory ready to send to Chinese customers.

The Federal Aviation Administration has capped Boeing’s (BA) output of the 737 Max since January, when a door plug blew out in midflight from a new plane flown by Alaska Airlines. Boeing (BA) has promised to boost production of the 737 Max to 38 a month by the end of the year.

Delivery numbers are a key metric for investors because they’re associated with cash flow, which has been vital for Boeing (BA) as the company makes payments on debt that was needed to survive the pandemic slump.

Boeing (BA) has a backlog of orders for 6,165 commercial planes from airlines that saw a resurgence in demand for air travel as the pandemic receded.