They Cried, They Hurt, But Kept Flying Boeing 737 MAX

Lawsuits in court, same planes on routes

Polish airline Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT accuses Boeing of selling it 15 aircraft in 2016 while concealing problems with the MCAS flight control system—the very algorithm that would become the key cause of two crashes killing 346 people two to three years later. At the trial's opening, LOT's attorney framed the lawsuit simply: a case about lies and deception by Boeing and the financial damage they caused.

The paradox is that the lawsuit runs parallel to purchases of these same models for LOT's fleet. By early 2026, LOT's fleet included around two dozen 737 MAX 8 aircraft, and in December 2025 the carrier received the first of 13 new deliveries scheduled for this year. Beyond current contracts, LOT's total order includes 55 aircraft under firm contract and options for 44 more, with the bulk of purchases specifically from Boeing.

LOT isn't alone in leveling claims against the aircraft manufacturer. Boeing itself has mentioned significant sums in out-of-court settlements with other affected airlines—specific figures undisclosed. The Polish flagship is simply the first to take its claims before a jury. All others who reported losses from the MAX grounding in 2019 settled without public trial and continue flying the same aircraft. And ordering new ones. In other words, Boeing's attorney's courtroom rhetoric—"is this how a fraud victim behaves?"—has a point.

The tab keeps growing

Boeing's direct financial losses from the 737 MAX saga have been accumulating for six years as of early 2026. In January 2021, the company reached a $2.51 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, of which $243.6 million went to criminal penalties, $500 million to a compensation fund for families of victims in the 2018 Lion Air-610 crash near Jakarta and the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines-302 crash near Addis Ababa, and $1.77 billion in compensation to airlines that purchased these models. Civil lawsuits continue in parallel: according to the company, by early 2025 over 90% of family claims had been resolved. In November 2025, a Chicago jury awarded $28 million to the family of a UN employee killed in the Ethiopian crash—the first jury verdict after years of out-of-court settlements.

And despite settlements and tragedies in the early and late 2020s, aircraft problems haven't ended. On January 5, 2024, a door plug—an emergency exit seal—blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 at around 16,000 feet. Investigation determined that four securing bolts had not been installed. After that incident, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspected Boeing factories and its key contractor Spirit AeroSystems. The inspection revealed serious quality control problems: Boeing failed 33 of 89 manufacturing oversight audits, while Spirit AeroSystems failed 7 of 13.

Immediately after the incident, the FAA imposed a production cap—38 737 MAX aircraft per month instead of the planned 57. This cap held until March 2026, when it was lifted. Alaska Airlines estimated damage from the 737 MAX 9 grounding at approximately $160 million for the first quarter of 2024. Boeing has already paid the airline about $160 million in compensation and promised additional discounts on future aircraft. And after all the incidents, in 2025 Boeing reacquired Spirit AeroSystems—the fuselage manufacturer for the 737 MAX that it had spun off as a separate company back in 2005. This marked an effective abandonment of a two-decade strategy of aggressive outsourcing: after a series of scandals, Boeing concluded that transferring production of key aircraft components to an external contractor created excessive risk to quality and safety.

Two split the market, there is no third

Here begins the main explanation for why airlines continue buying Boeing even after a string of scandals.

The market for mainline narrowbody aircraft has essentially become a duopoly: Boeing and Airbus. There are simply no other manufacturers with comparable scale, certification, and production capacity. A320neo delivery slots are already allocated through the 2030s. Both manufacturers have waiting lists for new deliveries measured in decades—meaning any airline ordering a narrowbody today is effectively joining a queue extending beyond the planning horizon of most economic cycles. Boeing and Airbus are currently sold out years in advance. As of end-March 2026, Boeing's production backlog stood at over 6,000 aircraft, Airbus at over 9,000.

And this situation has persisted in aviation for years. According to IATA calculations, between 2019 and 2026 the global fleet should have received 16,004 new aircraft, but will actually receive around 10,720. The shortfall—5,284 aircraft—isn't solely a consequence of the pandemic and MAX grounding: production simply can't keep pace with orders.

The bottleneck isn't even assembly lines, but engines. CFM (a joint venture of GE Aerospace and Safran), which supplies engines to both Boeing and Airbus, can't keep up with two clients simultaneously. Pratt & Whitney on the A320neo program is also slowing Airbus deliveries. For first quarter 2026, Airbus reported profit down 52%—despite a record order backlog. In this configuration, the option to "walk away from Boeing" for many airlines boils down to a choice: either fly what you have, or wait a decade.

The queue is longer than trust

Theoretically, alternatives will soon emerge for the world. Two of them: China's COMAC C919 and Russia's MC-21. On paper, both cover the same segment as the 737 MAX 8 and A320neo. Since December 2022, when China Eastern received the first aircraft, COMAC has delivered 35 C919s. For 2025, the initial plan called for 75 aircraft—15 were actually delivered. For 2026, the company announced 28 deliveries, with Chinese airlines collectively expecting 33. In first quarter 2026, three aircraft were delivered: two to China Southern and one to Air China, with zero in January. Some completed aircraft are awaiting engines.

The Chinese airliner's key problem is dependence on the same LEAP-1C from CFM that's already loaded with orders. In summer 2025, the U.S. temporarily blocked delivery of these engines to China, turning the C919's key vulnerability from theoretical to practical. China's domestic CJ-1000A engine won't enter mass production before early next decade. So the Chinese "alternative" to Boeing runs on an American engine and can be grounded at any moment.

The MC-21 situation is even more complicated. Currently, delivery of the first 18 aircraft is scheduled for 2026–2027. Certification with the Russian PD-14 engine is expected in October 2026, with about a third of 232 certification flights completed. Even under an optimistic scenario, we're talking about a fleet that will serve internal Russian needs, not a mass competitor to Boeing and Airbus in the global market.

Boeing plans to reach a rate of 53 737 MAX aircraft per month by end-2026—up to 600 deliveries annually. Airbus is targeting 870 deliveries per year under the A320neo program. Against this backdrop, dozens of C919s and MC-21s aren't even a statistical error, but merely a signal that an alternative exists in principle, though won't become truly competitive in the near term, and only after meeting domestic market needs. A competitor on Boeing or Airbus scale isn't just a finished aircraft, it's an entire industrial cluster with proprietary engines, avionics, and supplier chains.

So LOT's lawsuit alongside simultaneous expansion of its fleet with the same model isn't a contradiction, but working within current market conditions. You can sue a manufacturer over the past, hoping for compensation, but in the present you must buy from them anyway. Doing business in a duopoly is extremely difficult.