What Boeing’s F/A-XX win means for the company, and what challenges come next

WASHINGTON — Boeing has emerged the champion to build the Navy’s sixth-generation strike fighter — beating out competitor Northrop Grumman to build the aircraft that will replace the service’s aging F/A-18 Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fighter jets. 

But while the more than $20 billion win gives Boeing a stranglehold on America’s sixth-generation fighter fleets, the challenge now is making sure the company can execute, according to analysts who spoke to Breaking Defense ahead of the contract decision.

To be sure, today’s win represents a major turnaround for Boeing’s defense arm. After years of struggling with major aircraft programs, including executing on the KC-46 tanker and T-7 trainer, Boeing’s March 2025 award of the Air Force’s F-47 fighter marked a turning point for the company. That the firm now controls the future of America’s manned airpower is an impressive turnaround, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory.

“For Boeing it would be a big step in an extraordinary turnaround: from legacy manufacturer of sunsetting fighter programs to the company that has a lock on the US’s fighter future,” Aboulafia said. 

Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, voiced similar sentiments, saying that winning F/A-XX represents “a complete pendulum swing for Boeing, going from thinking that they’re going to be closing their fighter lines to having both of the big contracts for sixth-generation fighters.”

However, analysts warned, there are potential challenges ahead as Boeing attempts to execute a series of major production efforts.

“The first question that comes to mind is how quickly they can produce a workable F/A-XX, which is really a question of how much it’s based on the F-47 that they’ve already developed,” Jeremiah Gertler, a senior advisor at the AeroDynamic Advisory and former military aviation analyst for the Congressional Research Service, told Breaking Defense. “If the two designs have a lot in common or were actually co-developed, we could see an F/A-XX fly a lot sooner than one might expect.”

However, Gertler said there may be a personnel challenge, at Boeing’s production site in St. Louis — given that the firm already secured contracts for the Air Force’s next-generation fighter known as the F-47, and the T-7A Red Hawk training jet for the Air Force. 

“They will be trying to execute F/A-XX, F-47, T-7, and a significant planned increase in F-15EX rates all at the same time from the same factory complex,” Gertler said. “Do they have (and can they find) the people needed to keep those production lines all working at a high rate simultaneously?”

Doug Birkey, the executive director for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, also raised concerns with workforce demands.

“Ensuring that the early program workforce demand signal is adequately balanced between F-47 and FA-XX will have to be proactively managed — a challenge that can be stewarded,” Birkey said. 

In a note to investors after the contract was awarded, Roman Schweizer of TD Cowen noted that investors will want to look closely as how Boeing priced its offering and what the contract structure of the deal is — both issues that have tripped up previous Boeing programs.

“We think the award suggests the Navy placed significant weight on Boeing’s manufacturing capacity and ability to deliver at scale,” Schweizer said. “Navy leaders had previously hinted that industrial capacity and schedule risk were important factors in the decision, and Boeing has spent last several years investing heavily in facilities and digital engineering capabilities in St. Louis.”

Concerns about the ability of Boeing to produce jets for both the Navy and Air Force emerged in 2025, thanks to a statement by the White House that effectively argued against funding F/A-XX in order to keep F-47 on track. In today’s statement, Boeing’s defense chief Steve Parker appeared to address that thinking, saying that “delivering two advanced fighters in parallel was always our plan, and we invested accordingly.”

“We are ready and able to build multiple concurrent future combat aircraft franchise programs,” Parker said.

Boeing has produced fighter jets for the Navy for decades — including the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the EA-18G Growler. However, those programs were approaching their final chapters. To that end, the Navy also awarded Boeing a contract on Tuesday to support the shuttering of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet and the EA-18G Growler production lines. 

Northrop Loses Out

On the flip side of today’s Boeing win is Northrop Grumman, who was seeking to become a prime on a fighter jet for the first time since the venerable F-14 Tomcat.

But while losing out on F/A-XX, after choosing not to pursue what became F-47, is undoubtedly a blow to Northrop, analysts largely remain positive on the company, which has a buffer of major programs including the B-21 bomber and Sentinel ICBM, as well as parts of the F-35 production.

“In terms of other impact, both companies already have tentpole defense programs. F/A-XX will be a boon to whoever builds it, but it’s not a situation where that plane is necessary to keep the company or their defense or aeronautics division going,” Gertler said. “Whoever doesn’t win this contract will still be fine.”

Echoed Aboulafia, “I don’t think it would mean very much” for Northrop overall to lose out on the competition.

Of course, today’s announcement may not be the final word: Northrop is almost certain to look into options to protest the decision. However, Schweizer warned in his investors note that, “historically protests of major classified aircraft competitions have had a low success rate.”

What It Means For The Navy

The Pentagon’s contract announcement on Tuesday said the award covers the full-scale development phase, and “procures multiple test aircraft for ground, airworthiness, systems, and weapons integration testing.” So far, the service has not shared many specifics on the aircraft, although officials have acknowledged that it will feature greater range than current aircraft. 

At the same time, the Navy is seeking to develop future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a combat drone that completes missions jointly with manned aircraft. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle confirmed in April that the CCA concept and the F/A-XX fighter both tied into the Navy’s broader air wing of the future concept, USNI News reported. 

According to Pettyjohn, the composition of the carrier air wing — meaning the balance of manned and unmanned aircraft — is critical for the Navy to project power, and “having a crewed fighter jet at the heart of it is really important.” 

“It’s going to be interesting to see how many they’re planning to buy, and how they’re going to mix in the different uncrewed systems along with that, and what type of weapons they put on the F/A-XX, which will give a hint as to the missions that they’re prioritizing and how they really plan to be able to project power offensively — especially In the Pacific, when you’re looking at those great distances and Chinese forces with very long-range weapons that right now are on the verge of pushing the surface navy outside of the area of operations,” Pettyjohn said.