F-35 Production at Lockheed Martin to Remain Steady through 2028.

The F-35 final assembly line is scheduled to run full throttle producing 156 jets annually at least through 2028 despite slight cut downs in Pentagon's near term procurement plans for the jet as it gets ready for a new update. The F-35 FAL, located at Fort Worth, Texas, is running full steam, despite supply chain constraints, to meet scheduled deliveries to the U.S. Armed Forces besides international program partners as well as NATO allies. The F-35 program's growing international orders are likely to provide sustenance to it over medium term as Europe & NATO gets ready to transition to state-of-art 5th generation fighters to meet growing Russian menace as well as threat to Europe, especially, after its invasion of Ukraine. Europe, notably, has over 300 F-35 jets on order across variants which are likely to be delivered by the end of current decade. The latest entrant to the F-35 program from Europe has been Czech Republic, which just announced its decision to buy 24 F-35 Lightning II jets under FMS route in January 2024 with first set of F-35s scheduled to be delivered in 2031. Greece's procurement of 40 F-35As, too, has just been cleared by the United States giving a further boost to the F-35 program which now needs to deliver on its deliveries schedules going forward.