Boeing’s Backlog Hits Record $715B, Loss Narrows to $428M

The quarter turned positive, by $156 million

Boeing delivered 171 commercial airplanes in the three months to June 30, 14% more than a year earlier. It booked 246 net orders, including aircraft for Korean Air, Delta Air Lines and SMBC Capital. Revenue rose 8% to $24.56 billion, and earnings from operations came to $156 million against a loss of $176 million in the same quarter last year.

That is the first positive second quarter Boeing has reported since 2022. Its own quarterly filings put the June-quarter operating line at a loss of $99 million in 2023, $1.09 billion in 2024 and $176 million in 2025. On core operating earnings, the non-GAAP measure Boeing uses to strip out pension accounting and certain charges, the quarter came to $1 million and a margin of 0.0%.

Cash moved further than profit did. Operating cash flow was $1.364 billion against $227 million a year earlier, and free cash flow was $0.6 billion. Over the first six months, operations generated $1.185 billion where they had consumed $1.389 billion in the same period of 2025.

A record $715 billion backlog, and two segments that lost money

Total backlog reached a record $715 billion. Commercial Airplanes holds $597 billion of that on more than 6,200 airplanes, a record of its own. Defense, Space & Security holds $85 billion, 27% of it ordered by customers outside the United States. AeroVironment reported record revenue on defense drone demand earlier this month. Global Services holds the remaining $33 billion.

Only the smallest of the three segments made money. Global Services earned $968 million on $5.34 billion of revenue, an 18.1% margin. Commercial Airplanes lost $322 million on $11.75 billion, a margin of negative 2.7%. Defense lost $15 million on $7.48 billion after $280 million of losses on the VC-25B program, the presidential aircraft, whose first delivery Boeing still places in 2028.

Backlog is a promise of future revenue rather than a claim on this quarter’s. It repays close reading, as Honeywell showed last week when it re-filed a quarterly report because $9.3 billion of backlog had been printed against the wrong segment. Order books have been the strong line across industrial results this month, including the jump in Baker Hughes gas equipment orders.

Interest cost $600 million, nearly four times the operating profit

The path from a $156 million operating profit to a $428 million net loss runs through three more lines of the same table. Other income added $79 million. Interest and debt expense took $600 million. Income tax took $63 million. What is left is the reported loss of $428 million, or $0.67 a share.

Boeing closed the quarter with $45.9 billion of consolidated debt, down from $47.2 billion three months earlier, and $20.0 billion of cash and investments in marketable securities. It also has $10.0 billion of credit facilities, all of them undrawn. Interest and debt expense was $710 million in the same quarter last year, so the bill is coming down as the debt does.

The loss itself narrowed 30%, from $612 million to $428 million. Boeing is not the only name in the sector carrying a record on one line and a decline further down, and American Airlines posted record revenue with profit down 88% last week.

What to watch

1. The 737 program began moving to a production rate of 47 airplanes a month in the quarter, and Boeing activated low-rate initial production on the 737 North Line in July. Certification flight testing is finished on the 737-7 and the 737-10, with certification still anticipated in 2026 and first deliveries in 2027.

2. Consolidated debt fell $1.3 billion in the quarter, to $45.9 billion. Every quarter of repayment lowers the interest line that the operating result has to clear, which is the arithmetic to watch as closely as the delivery count.

3. Boeing’s Form 10-Q for the quarter carries the program accounting behind these segment numbers, including the accounting quantities for the 737 and the 777X and the reach-forward loss balances. That is the document where the $280 million of VC-25B losses is explained rather than merely named.