I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Boeing's 737 MAX has become the best-selling aircraft in the company's history, driving a slight rise in stock price. Despite past setbacks like the 2024 door blowout, a strong backlog of 7,206 orders highlights its success. Meanwhile, Air New Zealand is retrofitting its 777-300ER with new cabin designs. Wall Street maintains a 'Strong Buy' consensus on Boeing stock, citing significant upside potential based on analyst ratings.
Aerospace stock Boeing (BA) recently made a discovery about its 737 MAX line of jets. While we have known for quite some time that the 737 MAX is basically the backbone of Boeing right now, it also proved to be something else: the highest-selling aircraft in Boeing's history. That revelation hit investors just right, and Boeing shares gained fractionally in Wednesday afternoon's trading.
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While the MAX 10 and MAX 7 versions are still awaiting certification by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the MAX series as a whole is still a huge seller. In fact, thanks to a surging backlog of orders, Boeing now looks to deliver a total of 7,206 aircraft across all versions. That makes the 737 MAX the best-seller Boeing has ever had.
The MAX line started its brisk sales career back in 2011, though the now-infamous door blowout on an Alaska Airlines (ALK) flight back in 2024 hurt both sales and production badly. Now, with Boeing looking at its best year of sales in over a decade, it has become clear that all the moves it made to improve product quality have paid off.
New Cabin Plans
Meanwhile, Air New Zealand (ANZFF) is also making plans for its future Boeing aircraft. Air New Zealand recently noted that it had design plans for the Business Premier and economy cabins for the 777-300ER aircraft. The Business Premier section will boast 44 Collins Elevation seats with 43-inch pitch, and the seats can convert to lie-flat beds. The total number of seats, though, will remain the same.
Meanwhile, the economy cabin will have 246 seats from Zim, which will be "ergonomically designed," but from the sounds of it, absolutely do not lie flat. Economy passengers will have their choice of the Standard Economy seat with a 31-inch or 32-inch pitch, or the Economy Stretch with a 35-inch pitch. Air New Zealand's first Boeing 777 is set to arrive in March, undergo retrofitting, and then be on the tarmac for service in May.
Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 16 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 5.56% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $275.79 per share implies 25.84% upside potential.