Boeing plans to cut about 5% of its commercial airplane workforce through a mix of attrition and involuntary layoffs, with notifications to employees beginning in December. The planemaker says the move comes because its production ramp-up has been moving slower than expected, leaving the division overstaffed relative to current output.
Stephanie Pope, chief of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, explained the reasoning in blunt terms. “Adjusting our production schedules and reducing aircraft output puts us in an overstaffed position,” Pope said, according to FOX 13 Seattle. Pope told employees about the planned cuts in an internal memo, according to Reuters, whose report on the layoffs was filed from Seattle and Bengaluru and written by Dan Catchpole and Nandan Mandayam. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is the division targeted by the cuts.
The job cuts follow weeks of warning signs. Boeing said in late October that it would no longer meet its target for 2026 deliveries, according to BNN Bloomberg. CNBC reports that Boeing's production ramp-up is moving at a slower pace than the company expected, a shortfall that has left it with more workers than its current output requires.
A Production Rate That Keeps Slipping
Boeing's 737 Max program sits at the center of the overstaffing problem. The company had previously projected a production rate of 47 jets per month by summer 2026, but as of late October it was still working to stabilize output at roughly that pace, according to Leeham News. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg acknowledged the delay directly, telling analysts, “I'm expecting it'll take us into next year to get fully stable at this rate,” according to Reuters. The company now expects to reach the 47-jet-per-month rate in early 2027, and it is separately targeting a jump to 52 planes a month in the second half of 2027, according to CNBC's reporting on Boeing's third-quarter earnings.
The 737 is not a minor line item for Boeing — 737 deliveries are a major driver of its cash flow, which makes any delay in ramping up its output especially consequential for the company's finances. Ortberg also told analysts that Boeing does not expect to reach $10 billion in free cash flow until 2029, Reuters reports, a target analysts had previously expected the company to hit in 2028.
Trouble Beyond the 737 Line
The 737 isn't the only program lagging behind plan. Boeing has struggled to increase 787 production from eight jets per month to ten, Reuters reports, even though the company told investors in its fourth-quarter results that it began transitioning 787 output to eight planes per month in the final quarter of 2025 and remained focused on stabilizing at that rate, according to Boeing's own fourth-quarter report. Reuters also reports that Boeing's 767 and 777 programs have been disrupted, adding to the pressure across the commercial side of the business.
The slowdown comes despite what was, on paper, a strong year for deliveries. Boeing reported 600 commercial deliveries in 2025, its highest annual total since 2018, the company said in its fourth-quarter results. That figure marked a 72.4% increase from 2024, according to Manufacturing Dive, though rival Airbus still outpaced Boeing with 793 deliveries over the same year, per the same outlet's reporting. The 737 program itself increased its production rate to 42 per month during the fourth quarter of 2025, Boeing said in its earnings release.
Echoes of a Bigger Cut a Year Ago
This isn't the first time Boeing has trimmed its ranks amid production headaches. The company cut about 17,000 employees in November 2024, equal to roughly 10% of its workforce at the time, FOX 13 Seattle reports. Boeing announced its latest cuts on Monday.
Reuters reports that Boeing's Renton, Washington factory remains a focal point of the company's production challenges. Despite the scale of the announced cuts, Boeing shares were down less than 1% in afternoon trading, according to Reuters.
