For the first time since November 2019, Boeing delivered a 787 Dreamliner directly to a Chinese airline on Thursday. This significant event may pave the way for the delivery of the company’s cash cow, the 737 Max.

According to Boeing, the Boeing 787-9 operated by privately held Juneyao Airlines departed for Shanghai on Thursday from outside the company’s Everett, Washington, facility. A leasing company delivered the last brand-new Boeing 787 to a Chinese airline in 2021.

As China’s embargo on numerous outstanding deliveries of Boeing 737 Max, the company’s best-selling aircraft, approaches its fifth year, Boeing dispatched the aircraft.

Following the plane’s second fatal crash in roughly five months, China grounded the aircraft in March 2019, and other nations soon followed. 2020 saw the United States lift its ban, and other countries soon followed.

Boeing has been rushing to meet demand for new aircraft, even though manufacturers bear the majority of the cost of the aircraft.

Approximately one-third of Boeing’s 250 Max aircraft are allocated to Chinese airlines, as per Jefferies analysis. Some of the other Maxes had been remarketed by Boeing to other carriers.