March 17 (Reuters) - Boeing ( BA ) is expecting flat or possibly positive margins this year for its commercial airplanes division, Boeing ( BA ) Chief Financial Officer Jay Malave said Tuesday at the Bank of America Global Industrials Conference in London.

The commercial airplane division lost $632 million in 2025 and $2.1 billion in 2024. 

The company expects to increase production of its popular 737 MAX jet from roughly 42 aircraft a month to 47 a month by year's end and to deliver about 500 of the jets this year, he said.

The single-aisle jet is critical to Boeing's ( BA ) financial recovery. 

Deliveries in the first quarter were slightly hampered by damage to wiring on about 25 737s, but fixing the problems only required a few days of more work and will not hurt annual deliveries, he said.