The Virginia-based group is one of the few winners so far from the knife-edge diplomacy pursued by Donald Trump. To win favor with the mercurial US president, orders from abroad have actually poured in; so much so that, for the first time in ten years, Boeing is taking in more orders than Airbus.

The manufacturer's operating result nonetheless remains deeply in the red. Adjusted for the exceptional gain from the sale of the Digital Aviation Solutions segment, the loss tops $5bn this year. There is, to be sure, an improvement compared with last year's catastrophic $11bn operating loss, but the company is still far from where it needs to be.

Last year's debacle forced Boeing into a massive and highly dilutive capital increase. In that context, the acquisition of its fuselage supplier Spirit AeroSystems - which depended almost entirely on Boeing - was deftly financed with shares.

Spirit's shareholders, themselves battered by a long stretch of difficulties following the pandemic, as well as by an unmistakably painful exposure to Boeing's tribulations, had good reason to welcome such an exit route.

Boeing, one hopes, is therefore at the bottom of the cycle after a grim run of accidents and what was once calamitous management, which saw the group take on dangerously high levels of debt to fund share buybacks at prohibitive valuations.

In commercial aviation, 2025 marks a spectacular jump in deliveries, up 72% from 2024, while revenue rises 82%. This increase stems chiefly from the resumption of 737 orders, a model that accounts for over two-thirds of deliveries.

In the defense segment, revenue increases 14% with an order book at record highs. Nevertheless, as noted above, both the civil and defense segments keep operating margins in the red, while the pickup in activity leaves cash flows in negative territory.

The group's new chief financial officer, Jay Malave, nonetheless promises that 2026 will mark a welcome turning point on that front. He is forecasting free cash flow of between $1bn and $3bn this year.

Boeing is therefore not out of the woods. Over the past seven financial years, it has notched six years of operating losses, even as the cost of its debt quadrupled over the period.

Carried by the Trump administration, the manufacturer nonetheless retains investors' confidence.