For Boeing, the current timing is painful.
The plane maker is finally starting to put together something that is missing for a while now, momentum. Korean Air said on March 26 that it plans to buy 103 Boeing aircraft through 2039 in a deal valued at about $36.2 billion based on Boeing’s 2025 list prices.
For a business that has spent years dealing with safety issues, delivery problems, and a bad reputation, that was a big deal coming from a major airline customer.
The positive news continues beyond this point. Europe’s top aviation regulator said relations with the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing are improving, which is big news after the 737 MAX crisis fractured trust between regulators.
The FAA also gave Boeing a useful product win when it certified higher maximum takeoff weights for the 787-9 and 787-10. This meant that airlines could carry more cargo or fly longer routes.
That does not mean Boeing is now in the clear.
After that, the war in Iran changed things. Boeing is now facing a new threat that doesn’t come from one of its factories. It starts with airlines under pressure from rising fuel costs, shorter shipping routes, and new supply chain uncertainty. That’s a bad turn for a company that is still trying to turn demand into a cleaner recovery.
“We are again trustful partners,” EASA chief Florian Guillermet said of ties with the FAA.
Boeing’s recent progress was never going to fix all of its old problems.
Earlier this month, the company said that wiring problems could cause delays in the delivery of some 737 MAX jets in the first quarter. Later, Reuters reported that Boeing was fixing up to25 MAX aircraft that had not yet been delivered.
Boeing, on the other hand, kept making 42 planes a month, which helped make it seem like this latest problem was serious without turning into another full-blown public spiral.
Boeing was finally getting the kind of news it needed
The Korean Air order is worth more than just a headline number. It included 20 777-9s, 25 787-10s, 50 737-10s and eight 777-8 freighters, meaning Boeing won plaudits thanks to the very programs most need customers to keep believing in.
That is why the order was more than just a sales win. It reminded me that Boeing’s biggest problem is still not demand. It’s execution.
The tone from Europe was also important. Guillermet said that the FAA was now doing its job and that Boeing was handling the criticism well. That kind of language from regulators is not background noise for Boeing. It gets to the heart of whether the company is moving away from the stage where every problem is a vote on its whole culture and management style.
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Boeing is also winning on the commercial side. The FAA’s approval of higher takeoff weights for the 787-9 and 787-10 provides carriers with greater flexibility in route planning and cargo economics, and Boeing stated that the first jets built with that capability are already in the ticketing and delivery process. This is the type of practical improvement that airline customers value.
When you put all of the pieces of the pie together, Boeing’s late-March setup looked a lot better than it had only a few months earlier. Demand was still strong. Regulators were sounding less angry. The most recent problem with manufacturing seemed easier to handle than the ones that came before it. The next step was harder because of the war in Iran.
Boeing’s airline customers are feeling the pain first
The clearest warning sign is from Korean Air itself.
Korean Air said on March 31, just days after announcing its big Boeing order, that it would go into emergency management mode in April because the cost of fuel related to the Iran war was expected to rise from 220 cents per gallon in its business plan to about 450 cents per gallon. That doesn’t mean the airline is no longer working with Boeing. It does mean that the economics of that order just got a lot harder.
China’s top three airlines sent a similar warning on the same day. Reuters reported that Air China, China Eastern and China Southernturned cautious on their 2026 outlook as jet-fuel prices climbed. In total, fuel accounts for as much as 38% of operating expenses.
Boeing doesn’t need a lot of cancellations for this to matter. All it needs is for customers to be more careful about growth, delivery times, and spending money.
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Boeing is already closely observing the supply chain for damage. Reuters said that the company asked its suppliers to find out if the war was affecting production in any way, even if it was further down the supply chain. Boeing’s biggest parts hub isn’t in the Middle East, but Strata in the UAE does make parts for the 787 Dreamliner. For Boeing, this story is challenging because there isn’t one big plant shutdown; instead, there is a slow rise in friction across sourcing, transport, and production planning.
The industrial backdrop is also getting ugly. Iranian attacks on March 30 hurt major smelters in the UAE and Bahrain, which helped aluminum prices reach a four-year high. On the same broader conflict track, Europe’s aviation safety agency renewed its warning against flying over Iran, Israel, and parts of the Gulf until April 10. It said that wars are closing off flight paths and making them less safe. None of that helps a company that wants to make its output more stable and predictable.
Photo by (C) Core Lohse on Getty Images
Boeing’s defense business can help, but it does not fix this
There is a key reason why it’s important to not make this into a one-way bearish call.
Boeing in early March signed a $289 million contract with Israel for up to 5,000 smart bombs. That gives Boeing some exposure to rising defense demand intimately connected to the conflict. That means the Iran war might not be completely negative for the company.
However, there is an important caveat. As of early April 2026, the U.S.-led war in Iran is very unpopular. Polls show that about 59% to 61% of Americans are against the war and don’t like how President Trump is handling it. There are deep partisan divides over the conflict, and independents are very skeptical of it. It is also called one of the least popular U.S. wars in recent history. As a result, there is a sharp increase in headline risk when dealing with the war.
But investors won’t pay attention to that at first. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is feeling the immediate pressure, where airline margins, fuel costs, and logistics are important every day. That’s why the read-through for the near future still looks bad. Boeing had finally started to build a more believable story about its recovery: there was a lot of long-term demand, the tone of the regulators was better, and production problems were kept under control. The Iran war does not make that story bigger. It does make it harder to get there.
That’s the best way to frame Boeing right now.
This is no longer just a stock for emergencies. But it’s not a clean story of a comeback either. Boeing was fixing things. The Iran war is making that repair job harder by putting pressure on the customers. Boeing needs to be healthy, the costs Boeing needs to be stable, and the supply chain Boeing needs to be calm. Demand still seems real. The road from demand to recovery just got a lot messier.
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