Co. investors can’t wait to cash in on the aircraft maker’s turnaround. Their impatience could land the company back in trouble if Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg buckles under the pressure.

Investors are pushing Boeing to hustle on increasing airliner output so they can quickly reap the bounties of its $612 billion backlog of commercial aircraft orders. Some may dream of the heady days when the company returned close to $13 billion each year in 2017 and 2018 through dividends and historically high share repurchases.

Those hefty returns were a symptom of a company sliding into deep trouble, not an indicator of financial strength. Boeing management at the time had been squeezing costs, alienating its workforce and outsourcing more work to suppliers to juice profits. The pressure to cut corners culminated in two crashes of the 737 MAX that killed 346 people and a 2024 incident in which a door plug blew out midflight. Ironically, all those billions spent on share buybacks went up in smoke when Boeing’s shares tanked in 2020 — they still haven’t recovered.

Nobody should want Boeing to return to those practices. Yet the battle cry to hurry up and cash in has begun. Ortberg, who took the helm of an ailing Boeing in August 2024, has said that he won’t be rushed as he rebuilds the company’s manufacturing culture to put safety and quality first and to shore up the supply chain. The clamor for cash will grow, but Ortberg’s methodical approach is what Boeing needs to restore its swagger and catch up to its main rival, Airbus SE.

Boeing’s shares have slumped more than 20% since early August after it hinted that a planned production ramp up may be delayed. Investors stampeded out of the stock last week after Ortberg detailed that raising annual free cash flow to $10 billion by 2029 will take more time than analysts had estimated.

But that price graph ignores the impressive progress made compared with Boeing’s previous dysfunction, which had workers disgruntled and itching to strike. The company had previously been forced to create so-called “shadow factories” because the assembly of planes on its production line was so out of order that incomplete planes were parked separately and worked on out of sequence. Reports of chaos on the factory floor compelled the Federal Aviation Administration to increase manufacturing oversight and take control of issuing airworthiness certificates for each plane produced. Suppliers, such as Spirit AeroSystems, were delivering plane parts that Boeing had to rework.

Under Ortberg, Boeing has repaired relations with its workers’ unions, settling separate strikes with machinists in the Seattle and St. Louis areas and reaching a labor agreement with engineers without a strike. It embedded quality inspectors, engineers and other workers at suppliers around the globe after seeing some success from that approach with Spirit.

Boeing was producing its workhorse, single-aisle 737 MAX aircraft at a rate in the “low 30s” per month at the beginning of 2025 and was given FAA permission to increase that rate. Monthly 737 output is now 47 aircraft, and in July, the FAA handed back to Boeing the authority to issue airworthiness certificates for new planes. It no longer governs the company’s production pace.

The challenge now is ramping up production further. This is no easy task. Boeing must expand its factories, maintain a culture that puts quality above production targets and coordinate with an extensive supply chain to match its production rhythm.

The company has run into snags stabilizing 737 production at 47 aircraft, delaying plans to take that to 52 aircraft a month, according to Ortberg. The step-up requires a new production line in Everett, Washington. A similar situation is playing out at its factory in North Charleston, South Carolina, where production increases on the wide-body 787 aircraft face delays, some due to supplier constraints.

The pressure to hit that goal of $10 billion in annual free cash flow also takes aim at investments. The more Boeing spends to expand factories and design new aircraft, the lower its free cash flow. Now is the time for Boeing to reinvest in the business.

The company just won contracts to build the sixth-generation stealth fighter jet for both the Air Force and the Navy — locking in decades of work on a high-profile defense program that will require heavy investment.

Boeing also needs to design and build a new commercial airliner to remain competitive as it plays catchup to rival Airbus. Although it just gained certification to begin shipments of two new 737 MAX variants and is on the cusp of beginning deliveries of a new version of the 777 wide-body aircraft, those planes were delayed by years. Airbus is winning over customers with an extended range version of its A321 single-aisle jet that competes with the 737. Boeing can’t match that plane because the 737 is built on an airframe that was originally designed in the 1960s and has limitations that preclude adding extra fuel tanks, similar to the A321XLR. The priority should be to remedy this competitive disadvantage, not pump up free cash flow to hand over to shareholders.

As the clamor for quicker progress grows more shrill, let’s hope Ortberg doesn’t cave to the pressure and sticks to his guns on not rushing production increases. Boeing’s past troubles allowed Airbus to grab market share and extend its lead on aircraft deliveries. Another major stumble would leave the US plane maker even further behind.