Boeing’s cash turn is real, and it is not a straight line

Methodology

This index answers one question: is Boeing’s recovery real, and where is it still not? It is built entirely from Boeing’s own quarterly releases plus one external source for the FAA rate-cap dates, and it deliberately contains no Airbus comparison — that is /data/narrowbody-deliveries. BASIS. All cash-flow figures are free cash flow as Boeing defines it (non-GAAP: operating cash flow less capital expenditure). All margins are segment operating margin as reported. Backlog is total company backlog, not Commercial Airplanes alone. Deliveries are commercial aircraft only; Defense deliveries are excluded throughout. DERIVED POINT — DISCLOSED. Q1 2025 free cash flow of $(2.3)bn is the only derived value in this index. It is H1 2025 free cash flow of $(2.5)bn less the Q2 2025 figure of $(0.2)bn, both published in the same release. Cross-check: the Q3 2025 release gives nine-month free cash flow of $(2.252)bn, which less the Q3 figure of +$238m returns H1 of $(2.490)bn — consistent with the stated $(2.5)bn to rounding. The derivation is written into the point’s value_basis. OMITTED. Q1 2025 deliveries are not stated in the releases retrieved and are not derivable from a published nine-month total on the same basis. The quarter is absent from the delivery chart rather than interpolated. CONFLICT — DROPPED, NOT SEEDED. The full-year 2025 release returned a Global Services operating margin that cannot be reconciled with the 18.1% quarterly figures on either side of it or with the segment’s history. It is treated as unreliable. Full-year segment margins are therefore omitted from this index entirely; only the two 2026 quarters, which are mutually consistent, are charted. CAVEAT — 52 A MONTH IS A TARGET. The final bar of the rate-path chart is a stated next step with no published FAA approval and no announced date. It is labelled as a target in the subtitle and in the point’s value_basis. The 38 and 42 figures are regulatory caps; the 42 and 47 figures are production rates Boeing reported. Caps and rates are not the same measure and the chart’s x-axis labels say which is which. CAVEAT — PRODUCTION RATE IS NOT DELIVERY RATE. Boeing has been drawing down parked inventory over this period, so quarterly deliveries have at times exceeded the production rate. Do not read the rate chart as a delivery forecast. CAVEAT — SEASONALITY. Boeing consumes cash in Q1 and generates it later in the year. The Q1 2026 outflow of $(1.5)bn is a seasonal pattern visible in 2025 as well, not necessarily a relapse. Equally, the positive quarters do not mean the annual figure has turned: full-year 2025 free cash flow was still $(1.9)bn against $(14.3)bn in 2024. Compiled and verified 2026-08-14. Working sheet with every source passage: Topics_Content/data/batch-6_aerospace_2026-08-14.md