Jay Malave with us today, CFO, Executive Vice President of The Boeing Company. Jay, thank you for coming.
Thank you, Ron. Thank you for having me here. Happy to be here.
Yeah, it's great having you here. Maybe to quickly start off, this is sort of my big broad question I ask everybody, how's business?
The business I think is doing quite well. In 2025, at just a big picture, was a good year for The Boeing Company. It was one, I'd say foundational, while at the same time a year of pretty significant progress in the company's recovery. You take a step back, and maybe just go around the portfolio for a second. You know, BCA, coming off of 2024, we had a work stoppage, and it was really unclear in terms of what we'd be able to achieve from a delivery standpoint, a production standpoint. The company delivered, BCA delivered 600 aircraft last year, which was the highest since 2018. They also had, besides kind of just putting together, a solid framework and production cadence, they actually were increasing rates at the same time last year too.
The company put together a pretty strong and followed it, a quality and safety plan, and was methodical about creating stability and maintaining stability in the production system, which enabled it to then increase the rates of which what we saw. It really created a springboard for where we now are in 2026 and where we're going and beyond. They had a very good year. They also closed the Spirit acquisition, which was no small feat. As you know, you know, integrations are difficult, and we closed that at the end of last year, and they started in on the integration and have done quite well. We've seen defects come down by 40% here early 2026 relative to what we were performing at even in 2025. Really good performance there at Spirit as well.
We did have to fold in their accounting, which does cause a little bit of pressure on the BCA margins. For those that have followed us closely, we were expecting to be at least flat or positive margins at BCA this year. That gets pushed out a year to about till 2027. This year will be negative, and in fact, in this quarter, we'll be negative around 7.5%-8%. Even so, the combined business of Spirit and BCA is positioned well to really deliver for the future demand that we have.
When we think about our backlog, we have $682 billion of backlog across the entire company, over $560 billion of backlog at BCA, so it's critical that that part of the value chain works in a synchronized fashion, and they're doing so. Really good progress at BCA. BDS, the same thing. You know, on the whole, BDS really made some good progress. Again, same thing, stability in their development programs and some of the challenge of programs that have been challenged. You know, in the fourth quarter, we did get nicked up a little bit on the tanker program, but on the whole, they made a lot of progress.
Again, positioned themselves to start putting us here positive margin for 2026 and getting ourselves up that ramp to a high single-digit margins that they should be at. They're in the right path. Stephen Parker's done a nice job. They're really stabilizing that business, focusing on the fundamentals, really just program management, Integrated Product Teams, and incorporating really across the company, not just BDS, but across the company, things like Lean and continuous improvement. Really seeing good progress there. Finally, at BGS, they were just clicking along quite nicely. You know, high teens margins. Ended the year last year at 18%, delivering solid cash flow for us, which is critical given where we are in our recovery.
At the same time, they were part of the disclosure that the divestiture of Jeppesen, which is not easy to do, keeping everything going on a day-to-day basis while at the same time executing a divestiture. They did a nice job there, and that gave a boost to our cash balance, which puts us in a good place in terms of a margin of safety. All those things taken together are pretty good, pretty strong year and sets us up well. You know, the one blemish, if you will, we had last year was on development programs at BCA. We had to reset the schedules on the 737-7 and 737-10.
We had to reset the schedule in the third quarter on the 777X or 777-9 program. The good thing there is that we put those now on the right schedule. The reset was, while painful, now puts us in a position that we can execute to and perform to on that schedule, and we are performing exactly to those schedules today, as we speak. 2025's a good set up into 2026, and we're moving forward.
Maybe if we for lack of better expressions, double-click on Spirit for a moment. When you guys closed.
Mm-hmm.
brought it in, what did you find that was surprising? What had changed in, you know, the years when it was not part of Boeing anymore?
Yeah, well, the company had embarked on diversification, you know, so it became a little less, or tried to become a little bit, less Boeing-focused in that, you know, there was an impact on performance there, among a number of other issues. You know, the good thing there is that our team, our production team, and our supply chain team was able to get in there earlier than the close, just as a supplier and purchaser relationship. We were able to get, I think, an early start on quality performance. I think the team did a really good job there setting it up, and that's now resulted in the performance we're seeing today much better.
From a surprise standpoint, you know, you don't get access to all the information until you actually close. There was cost that was, you know, their cost was higher than the price that they were getting from us. We had to reset the margins at BCA as a result. Again, that's a short-term headwind. I think that we'll be able to work through that. When you think about longer-term cash flows, that really won't get in the way of us being able to generate the types of cash flows we've talked about in the past with both, you know, with you as well as with investors. I think those are the two primary things.
Really focus on execution there for all of our customers, not just the Boeing commercial programs, but our defense customers, as well as our aftermarket customers in Portland. We're seeing some good trends there.
That's great. In 4Q, there was a lot of progress made throughout the year. As outsiders looking in, what should we be looking for to kind of give us confidence? What gives you confidence that the performance is gonna continue into this upcoming year?
Yeah, you know, for us, it's. I'll take it maybe into different pieces, just in general, you're saying, right? On a production side, it's really following our production rollouts as well as our deliveries from time to time and how things shake out. You know, when you look at our production cadence, the deliveries may vary from month to month, but our production rollouts have been pretty steady. That's the important aspect of the production, particularly in the factory. We're seeing good performance there. As we've said, we're not going to increase rates before we're ready. We're going to stick to the safety and quality plan that we put in place. We need to see the stability.
We need to see the metrics perform. We have six KPIs. They haven't changed. We'll follow those KPIs and let the data follow our decision-making there. I think that's one area, just how are we performing against the KPIs and how are we performing in the production system in general. On the development programs, it's really completing where we are on the three programs is just various levels of flight testing, and where do we stand on those. Are we completing the flight testing in a timeline that we had laid out? Are we in a position to be able to submit the information that the FAA requires so they can perform their analysis and provide the necessary approvals for that?
Those are ongoing as well. Those I think are going pretty well. We could talk about that in more detail. It's really about monitoring those progress. I think quarter to quarter as we report results, we have been and we will continue to do just give you the color on where production is and where we are in our development programs, where we are on the programs in BDS from a recovery standpoint. You'll get to see the BGS financials, you know, every quarter to see how they're tracking from a growth standpoint.
Gotcha. How's the Everett 737 line going?
It's going well, actually. Kelly and I were there last week. We did a tour of the line. The tooling and equipment's in place. We're going through training. Our employees are being trained in the Renton factory, and that's ongoing. That's been happening for a few months now. We expect that we'll start our first aircraft build here in the summer. Everything's right on track there. You know, the stands are in place. The line is ready to go. It's gonna be an exact replica of Renton lines, so there'll be no change for those employees. We have some employees are gonna be coming in from Renton.
We have some employees will be coming in from our Moses Lake factory and some new employees that we're training up today. It'll be a mix of experienced employees that'll work in tandem with all the employees. We're excited about that. It provides, you know, not only just the ability to increase our rate, but also provides resiliency in the production system because now we'll have two sites producing and delivering our 737. We're very excited about that.
As outsiders, when would we expect that line to be sort of at a normalized cadence, right?
Well, it'll take us a few years. We'll start you know this year on our first build. It'll take us a number of months because of these kind of the first aircraft, and we'll induct a second aircraft. Sometime next year, we'll, you know, bump up to a rate two, and it'll go from there.
Yeah.
Again, it's gonna be no different than any other of our factories. Follow the metrics, make sure the performance is following the safety and quality plan. Whenever we're ready to increase rates in Everett, we will. You know, the way it's set up is, Renton will be rate 47 capable, and anything above 47 will be in Everett. It'll be a great enabler to these increasing rates.
Gotcha. You just think about the MAX 7 and MAX 10 certification targets and things seem to be in line. You know, what remaining test items have to happen? Again, what should we be monitoring to kind of feel good that, yeah, things are going the right way?
Yeah. I mean, well, the good news on that program is that we have all of the flight testing envelope has been approved by the FAA, so it's a matter of completing the flight testing. There are remaining things like autopilot with the engine anti-ice solution that we implemented last year has to go through the flight testing program as well. Advanced angle of attack. There's a number of aircraft systems and capabilities and functions that will have to be tested, but we expect to be complete with that sometime this summer. We'll be in a position to provide the appropriate documents and paperwork for the FAA for them to do their analysis upon. So that's tracking really well.
There'll also be some reviews related to what I call is the engineering process reviews to validate that your validation program so you know ties all the way back to your original requirements. That'll take place well this year as well. We're still on track to have these aircraft certified towards the second half of this year, and we'll start delivering next year.
That's great. How's the 777X going? Now, what milestones should we be looking for? You know, how should we, you know, think about longer-term demand and build rates for that airplane?
Yeah. You know, it's a similar case. It's not as far along as 737, but it's still on the right pace. You know, we discussed and disclosed in the fourth quarter call in January that we had approval for the TIA 3, which was the next big phase of flight testing. There are two more that we need to get approval for, and we're waiting for the next one very shortly here. Flight testing is ongoing, so it's not like we're paused in any way. We have a number of flight test assets that can handle and are configured for the different flight test program approvals that the FAA gives us, so that we can run all of these programs concurrently.
Like I said, this is a little bit behind from a certification standpoint than 737-7 and 737-10, but we're on the right path. As we mentioned, when we reset the program in the third quarter of 2025, we expected to get certified and start delivering aircraft in 2027. We're still on that framework. Again, it's similar milestones to the 737. Where are you in your approvals for flight test program, and where are you actually on the flight test program? Again, we're pretty much on track there.
When we think about it, if you can, longer term potential build rates for the program.
Yeah. Longer term, we'll be running up to about five per month. There's discussion about potentially taking that higher, but for the time being, we're right around 5, and that's something that we've been able to demonstrate in before the legacy 777 program. You know, there's a fair amount of demand. We've got over 500 aircraft in the backlog. There continues to be demand. We took a lot of significant orders last year and, you know, it's an excellent aircraft, so there still continues to be a lot of interest there. We expect there to be more orders.
Gotcha. Then, in 2026, how should we think about aircraft coming out of inventory versus aircraft coming off the line?
Right.
I guess from an outsider looking in, when will we see a tighter correlation between actual roll outs off the line to deliveries versus things coming out of that second factory?
Yeah. You know, this year it gets a lot closer. When you think about last year, maybe take a step back last year and I'll compare it to this year. You know, last year, on the 737, we delivered 447 aircraft. About 50 of those came from aircraft that had been built prior to 2023. It was a fair amount that had to do some completion work. But that really bolstered the delivery framework 'cause we weren't producing at that level. On the 787, we delivered 88 aircraft and similar type of story to about 15 in that ballpark of aircraft that delivered out of inventory. What was coming out of production wasn't at the rate of delivery. This year it for the most part does catch up.
When you look at 737, we expect around 500 aircraft this year, and that's supported by the 42 rate as well as we're expecting to go to 47 sometime mid-year on that program. In addition, we are building another 30 737-10s for delivery in 2027 once that gets certified. Actually build will exceed deliveries this year on the 737 program. Let me just stop here on that program for the moment. Because you know last week I think it was reported that we had paused delivery on 737 due to an internal notice of escape related to wiring in one of our facilities.
Since that time, our team went through the investigation to that analysis. They also presented that and worked with the FAA. What's come out of that is we've got about a population of about 25 aircraft that are impacted by that. They'll have to go undergo some level of rework, but you're talking around three days of rework, so not a significant amount of rework on those aircraft. We have resumed deliveries as of last week, so towards the end of last week we were able to resume deliveries of aircraft. The impact here is really one of timing. We'll see about 10 aircraft. We are expecting to deliver around 127 737s in the first quarter.
We'll slip about 10 of those deliveries into the second quarter. Fairly limited in the grand scheme of things. That'll put a little bit of pressure on cash from the quarter. I talked about cash flow being similar to what it was last year, maybe $200 million worse than last year as a result. At the end of the day, we'll get those aircraft back and delivered here in the second quarter. Really no change to our factory production. It didn't really change, it continued. It was not a safety of flight issue at all. We worked that with the FAA. We fully expect it will change rate to 47, like I said, around mid-year.
The team is actually working to an earlier date than that, but we're, you know, kind of for purposes of conservatism, I'm around mid-year.
Okay.
We're still expecting to deliver over around 500 aircraft. Really not much change at all. It's something that the team worked through, and frankly, I'm proud of in terms of how they approached it. You know, really using the Lean and continuous improvement tools, go down root cause, corrective action, understand the population affected, besides getting to the corrective action, determining what you can do to, you know, using continuous improvement parlance, mistake proof. How can you prevent something like this happening? Do a read across in other types of systems and machines so that you don't see a reoccurrence of this. I think that the BCA did all the right things around this and the impact is fairly limited.
Can you speak to how it was just noticed in the first place? Like what in the quality system said, "Hey, you know what? We have an issue here.
Well, they observed some nicks in some of the wiring, and that traced back to a machine that just didn't have the right calibration settings.
Mm-hmm.
They have to go back and trace back, you know, the root cause of the setting changes.
Yeah.
In the meantime, what they've done is like really taken those machines off the line and you're able to manually do this. They've been doing it manually.
Got it. You know, maybe just ask what we're talking about production in South Carolina, how are things going with 787 and the work.
Oh, yeah. Good. Thank you for asking the question. 787, again, you know, it's the rollouts have been pretty good actually in January and February. The deliveries have been a little bit lighter. You know, we've delivered about eight aircraft quarter to date, which is lighter. We're expecting to deliver anywhere about 20 aircraft in the quarter. So we expect that to be closer to maybe 15, maybe one or two better or worse in that ballpark. That's mostly related to seating certifications. You know, Kelly talked about that in the fourth quarter call in January, and we're still paced by some of these certifications that we're working through. Again, the build is happening, so we're really not changing the production cadence. The factory's been really, for the most part, unaffected there.
We continue to expect that we'll deliver 90-100 aircraft this year as well there. For that program, it's a timing issue as well.
Got it.
A little bit lighter in the first quarter, but we'll catch that up.
Got it. Like what we've heard is just the, you know, the front-end interior seats cert issue.
Yeah, the premium seating has been challenging. Those are very strict, rigorous types of certifications. You wouldn't, you know, ordinarily think so, but they are.
Yeah.
They're difficult to get through, and the airlines like to have their specific unique configuration, which they view as a differentiating selling point to their customers. We have to work through those.
Yeah. Maybe changing gears a little bit to the defense business. We're gonna see potentially another large uplift in U.S. defense spending in fiscal 2027.
Mm-hmm.
How's that look for you guys? I mean, what kind of opportunities are you looking for there?
Well, the business, you know, coming into this year was very strong. As I mentioned, we had record backlogs. They had a record backlog of $85 billion. You're coming across a business that's generating with about $27 billion of revenue. You got multiple years of already in the backlog, and you're looking at potentially more upside. You know, the team, you know, recently announced that they had reached an agreement with the Department of Defense related to a PAC-3 interceptor or seeker.
Yep.
I think the team is committed. You know, they got ahead of it. They had made some investments on the production system on that program earlier, so that enables them to ramp up a little quicker than they otherwise would have on that program. They're doing quite well. The demand is just pretty much robust. We're having a lot of dialogue with customers on our, you know, mainly the US DoD customer on the platforms as well, things like the tanker program. You know, yes, we have to kind of work through these lots in prior contracts, but we're in a position where we'll have much better contracts and much better demand on that tanker program as well. There's just quite a bit happening there.
There's demand on the helicopters and as you know, Ron, a significant amount of activity in space, and our team has a very good business there. We're positioned quite well to participate in these higher budgets.
Got it.
Currently.
Are you?
For us, it's execution. We got, you know, a backlog now. We have to execute on that backlog and make sure we earn the right to, you know, bring in additional business.
Any thoughts on F/A-XX, what could happen there?
You know, I would be speculating, Ron. You know, we're waiting. That's been on and off, on and off. You hear different things on that program. We have to follow the customer's lead on that.
Yeah.
Look, we feel that we've submitted a fabulous, compelling proposal to the customer, both technically, commercially, while at the same time protecting the Boeing shareholder. But that's ultimately the decision they got to make and on a timeline, their timeline, and that's not something that we necessarily have much of a say on.
Gotcha. One question that kind of comes up all the time: How should investors be thinking about potential incremental charges in the defense business?
Yeah. You know, it's been the running, I don't know if it's a joke or running fear. Jay Malave is gonna come in and do a bunch of EAC reviews, and we're gonna have a whole bunch of charges pop out left and right. You know, what I could say is that, you know, starting in January, I was able to get access to the defense businesses and on many of their programs. I've had a number of reviews, and it's not just, you know, financials. It's strategy, it's capability. How's that capability relevant today? How will that capability be relevant tomorrow? How can you enhance it? What type of modifications, and what's the investments necessary for that? It's as much strategic as it is financial.
Just on the financial, 'cause I think that's really where your question is, you know, I've had a chance to review a number of the EACs. While we do have improvement in those EACs, they're very achievable. I'm very comfortable the team has the right assumptions in there. They've got the right performance baselines. There's sound reasoning for the assumptions that they have in those EACs. You know, like Kelly said, you can never, you know, you can never say never on charges, but I don't see anything imminent. I think the team has done a good job of estimating, and they're doing a good job of staying on track to the estimates, the improvement plans that they have in those EACs. I don't see anything imminent. We'll continue.
Look, I do ongoing reviews on the commercial side, and I'll be doing ongoing reviews on the defense side just to see how we're doing. There's nothing that comes to mind that worries me.
That's great. How's the supply chain? I mean, are there, you know, pinch points? How are you managing that? Can, you know, the supply chain currently support the ramp that you have in front of you?
Yeah. I think in the short term, the answer to that is yes. You know, let's just start with BCA and the 737. We're going from 42, and our next rate change will be going to 47. I think that the supply chain is very well positioned to support that change. Pretty much across the board, we have an ample number of fuselages, we have an ample number of engines to support that. As you start going beyond 47 into 52, it starts getting a little bit tighter. You know, there are areas that we have, you know, we're watching. You know, I mean, engines is an obvious area where there's that tension between aftermarket and original equipment demand that with a limited supply.
Ultimately, that's something that we watch, and we have a very good relationship with our engine provider, and they do a good job of keeping us informed. I think they continue to make progress, and we'll just continue to monitor that. I think that's the primary one, probably in the narrow body. On the wide bodies, we've talked about some of these seating certifications that we're dealing with on the 787. There has also been some issues here and there on just some interiors and from a quality standpoint. Quality needs to get better so that we can improve the delivery.
When we're gonna go from eight to 10 on the 787 this year, that'll be probably in the back half of the year is our expectation there. Again, I think when we go from, say, 10 to 12 in future years, that'll be something that we'll have to keep an eye on. Same thing, you know, I think that we'll have to keep an eye on the interiors and probably engines as well.
Maybe back on 787, should we be thinking about a 787 freighter as a potential replacement for the 767?
It's possible. It's under consideration. The team considers it. I mean, right now, look, we've got enough on our fleet, to deal with, and then, the investment there is not insignificant, and it's not easy, so it's not something you can just do on the side.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's under consideration.
Yeah. Interesting. What's the aircraft pricing environment look like?
The pricing environment, you know, it. I'm gonna take that question back to the question that you asked Kelly in the fourth quarter call.
Okay.
You asked the question more in the context of, you know, just profitability pools and things like that in the industry, and would you change that in, you know, in a future program. I agree the way Kelly answered, and I think it's equally applicable to the pricing environment now. What he said was that a lot of it comes down to contracting, the risk that you take in your contracting, the terms that you agree to. You take a step back, and you think about the Boeing Company and what we are, we're an aircraft system integrator, and we take a lot of risk associated with being an aircraft system integrator.
The contracting, the pricing, as well as the terms that we agree to, should be commensurate with the risk of that. We need to protect ourselves probably better than we have from a risk perspective on the term side. The pricing should be reflective of the risk that we're taking as the integrator. I think we are seeing a better pricing environment, and it's reflective, I think, of a move towards that. It's not just being kind of opportunistic because, you know, there's minimal slots available. Yes, that's a factor. I think that we need to be just more prudent in the way we price.
Again, like I said, it's gotta be more connected to and correlated to the risk that we take as an integrator.
I mean, just maybe double-clicking on that. That was a question that I asked. Do you see the industry moving in that direction? 'Cause I would argue that I think most investors think that Boeing and your primary competitor don't price enough on the aircraft that you provide.
Well, you know, I can't speak for others. I can only speak about what we're doing. I really believe I'm really again impressed with what BCA, but what Steve and his team and his sales team are doing in terms of just being more prudent with sales campaigns, being more disciplined, being just using sound reasoning to the extent that we're incorporating changes that customers may or may not have seen in the past. It's just logic-based.
Yeah.
I, you know, I think that there's just room for that. Whether or not others are doing that, I can't really say. All I can tell you is what we're doing, and I think discipline is an important part of our recovery plan.
Yes. That makes a ton of sense. I mean, what are the key building blocks to bridge 2025 cash flow to the 2026 targets when you think about, you know, do deliveries, inventory drawdown, working capital?
Yeah. I mean, you look at it big picture, you go from 2025 to 2026 and, you know, BCA deliveries is just a big component. We are increasing deliveries pretty much across the board on the two major programs, 737, 787. That deck provides a cash flow boost. We're also getting a benefit from some excess inventory burndown in 2026 relative to where we were in 2025. You know, with timing, I mean, this year we see some timing benefits in terms of new orders. That varies from year- to- year, but we're expecting some benefits there, which will give us a little bit of a boost as well. Some pretty solid contribution out of BCA. You've got BDS with the profitability improvement.
We'll continue to see a contribution from them as well. They're shifting from a business that over the past few years have been pretty much negative cash flow to a business that will be breakeven to positive cash flow fairly quickly here. They're on the right path. Just the cash flow will follow the profitability path for them as well. BGS, you know, just kinda clicking along. Just continue to grow and drive some cash flow. Those are all, you know, the positives that we'll see in cash flow. Some of the kind of headwinds or offsets that we'll see negatives. We do have negative cash flow or higher negative cash flow on the 777X program this year.
You know, we still are going through a certification program, and we're building aircraft to start delivering next year. That does have a pretty decent sized cash burn to it. We've got higher CapEx, you know, this year about $4 billion of CapEx versus around three or a little bit, 2.9-ish last year. We'll see that for this year and next year around those levels, around $4 billion. You know, we have this kinda one-time payment, this DOJ payment from our settlement and some traditional corporate costs that we're dealing with too.
Those are all kinda things that are dragging it back down into this range of one to three, but I still feel comfortable in that range given all those moving pieces. I mean, there's a number of items there that are moving around. When you look at, we talked about this on the fourth quarter call in January. When you put aside, I know look, actuals are actual, so you can't necessarily ignore it. But when you put aside some of these temporary issues that we have that are impacting our cash flow, whether it be some of the pricing penalties that we've had, some of these excess inventories that we gotta work through, and where we're going in terms of aircraft build on 777.
Once we get ourselves fully delivered and get ourselves on the increasing rates, it's all temporary. That'll all burn off. The types of cash flow that investors had come to expect from the Boeing Company, it's in front of us. It's right there. It's not tomorrow, it's not today, but it's there. I'm very confident that's gonna happen as long as we execute.
Yeah. How's it going with hiring and retaining employees? I mean, is that stabilized? Is it?
Absolutely. You know, you think about that, Ron, maybe two to three years ago, there was just so much pressure on retaining talent and it really was all types of skills. It wasn't just technical skills. It was technical, factory workers, other professionals. It was just difficult to retain talent. Our retention rates are very high, last year and this year. Part of it is I think, you know, I came into the company in August, and I just saw a change, really a level of enthusiasm because employees started to believe that we could recover. I think that has just grown the momentum there, and I think that as a result, the retention has just been fantastic.
You know, we've got like a 4% acceptance rate for applicants in the company, which you may ask, "Well, then how did I get in?" Yeah, it's a good question. We're still working on that, but I did get in. I think big picture, we're doing a good job of retaining our employees, particularly our technical employees on the engineering side as well as on the factory side. We've been able to increase the head count. We pretty much have the employment levels that we need to deliver at these rate increases. Now it's a matter of training for those that are our new employees, and I think we're doing a very good job there as well.
High turnover really hasn't been an issue for us for a little while now.
Gotcha. How's the relationship with the union kinda now that we're past the strike?
Yeah, I'd look, everyone moves past that, we move on.
Yeah.
We're all one team. You know, a lot of our incentive structures and bonus structures across the company are tied to one company scores. You know, everyone's moved past that.
Yeah.
It's all about making the Boeing Company a better company each and every day, and delivering to our customers' requirements. You know, I was in Renton maybe about three weeks ago, just talking to the team who was going through the training, and the executive who's going to manage the Everett line, the north line, the way she explained is like, "Look, I'm not your boss. This aircraft is your boss, and we need to do what it takes to make sure that we take care of that aircraft." It's a great way of articulating what we're trying to accomplish. Boeing employees have bought into that.
Yeah.
We're seeing some really good progress and, like I said, better performance.
Yeah. Maybe switching gears a little bit. You guys have massaged the portfolio some. Would we expect any more portfolio management in terms of the assets you guys have?
Well, I think it's good corporate hygiene to always look at the portfolio, and we will do that. We will continue to look at the portfolio and determine whether or not there's things that should be pruned or things that should be added. I think that'll be an ongoing review. There's nothing imminent, Ron, that we're looking at. I think the, you know, the board expects management to give them, you know, portfolio reviews, and we do that. I can't say there's anything specifically to speak of at the moment.
Kind of, I always wonder about this, as you know, and I think this is the question in the back of people's minds. How are you thinking about new airplane development? In previous regimes around the company said, "Well, we're not doing that." How would you frame it now?
I would say that, you know, there will be a day where we have to enter into a new program. That day is not today, and it's not anytime near.
Yeah.
We do think about the technology that's going to be required on a new program. We have dialogues with suppliers in terms of technology. Propulsion technologies is a great example on how something like that will look like. Looking at things like newer or new and different types of material properties that you can apply to aircraft and what type of structures are you gonna be looking at. What type of systems. There's so much to look at. You just can't wake up one day and say, "Hey, we're gonna develop a new aircraft," and all of a sudden say, "We're just gonna turn the engineering lights on for that." You have to think about the technology beforehand. You have to start technology development.
That in no way means that anything is imminent. It’s unrealistic to say that we'll never develop a new program. We will at the right time. As Kelly has repeatedly been saying, I wholeheartedly agree with him, there's three conditions that need to take place. Number one, the market has to be ready. Number two, the technology has to be ready. Number three, The Boeing Company has to be ready. None of those three are in a place that we believe that would come anywhere close to supporting a launch of a new aircraft. You look at the market, we've got overdue aircraft. The customers are just, "Just give us what you've sold to us." We've got a $560 billion+ backlog.
We just have to deliver on that. As I mentioned on technology, there's still just a lot of things, trade studies that have to take place, and there's just a lot, a fair amount of time that's gotta pass before our engineers feel anywhere comfortable with settling on any type of configuration around that. So it's very kind of just really early. Then The Boeing Company, I think we spent the last half hour plus talking about what we're doing today in the here and now. We have to complete our certification programs, the 737-7-10. The 777X program we have to complete as well. We have to get ourselves to these rates that we've talked about. None of those conditions are anywhere near ready.
We're still going up the recovery path here. Like I said, that day will come, but it's not anytime soon.
You know, the one business in the couple minutes we have left that we just didn't really talk about is the services business.
Mm-hmm.
How should we be thinking about that, you know, and, you know, the growth profile there and how you broadly think about that business?
Yeah. You know, it's a good business, has various aspects to it. It has, you know, commercial aftermarket to it and a parts business. It has a defense sustainment to it, both kind of modification work, parts work, some level of MRO to it there. There's also distribution businesses where we're providing parts to our suppliers who are then turning those and putting those into a sub-system or a system they supply to us. It's a pretty diverse business. You know, the commercial world is not MRO heavy, and I'm not sure. You know, I think we've dipped our toe in that and didn't really like it, so I'm not sure that that's something that we would pursue significantly.
It's got a very good place in the marketplace. It even sells third-party proprietary parts and makes some margin on that as well, because it's a kind of a one-stop shop. It's easy to come to the Boeing Company and get a bunch of things to fulfill your needs and if you're a commercial airline or an MRO shop. You know, we look at it, they're on a great growth trajectory. If you think of where their trajectory, they've got, you know, enjoying the commercial, they're supporting OE, commercial aftermarket, a lot happening in military sustainment on a lot of our platforms. As you know, Ron, these military platforms, they get modernized a lot, often, and they have to continue to do work on those.
It's a good business and, you know, you see it reflected in the growth rates and in the margins.
I think with that's pretty much everything I had, Jay.
Well, thank you for your time, Ron. I really appreciate you being up here.
Great.
All right. Pleasure.