Boeing has stated it is being pressured to raise the production rate of the 737, which is another sign that the manufacturer is about to announce production rate increases beyond current targets.
"There's incredible pressure to go higher," Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes CEO Ray Conner said at a news conference in New York to announce the $11bn order of a new 737 MAX 200 variant from Ryanair.
"We still see tremendous demand across the board, way beyond 47 a month," Conner said, referring to Boeing's target to produce 47 737s per month, starting in 2017.
Boeing currently produces 42 737s per month at its factory in Renton, Washington, using fuselage sections produced by Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita, Kansas.
Conner said there is capacity at Spirit to go beyond 47 per month.
In August, Boeing Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith signalled that Boeing was close to deciding whether to push 737 production to 52 per month.
In contrast to the 737, Conner said Boeing will not raise production targets for the wide-body 787 beyond current levels, which call for 12 per month in 2016, rising to 14 per month by the end of the decade.