And so if you go back again in the middle of the year last year, we were talking with Boeing about rate 38 such numbers. And we’re really giving ourselves up to be able to address all of that. Also, I’ll say, schedules of engine requirements, et cetera, et cetera, that would make made bills, even though 38 did not materialize. Even though as you mentioned now we’re hearing, as I noted from the spirit caller that you referred to, I think it’s 38 in the summer and 42 in October. I mean, as such is great, and we’d love it. And there’s nothing which would give us more, I will say, pleasure and benefits than things that rates. But we also noted that during the fourth quarter that — the third quarter and fourth quarter is that the actual numbers of aircraft sold, for example, by Boing was stated to be, let’s say, back and by the time you took out claims from inventory, build rates were actually more or like in the 20s.
And then we interpretably stated that it maybe it was higher to the high 20s in the fourth quarter, albeit you’re never sure how many were just being finished off, et cetera. So, what was the level of actual build? We don’t know. And so when we look at this year, I start off with saying, let me think about guidance. And guidance for us is something which we take very seriously. It’s a base from which I think shareholders can realize — it’s a number that can be relied upon. So, if you look at 2019 where we’re comfortably exceeded it 2020 our COVID year 2021, we blew passed it. In 2022, despite extraordinary difficult conditions, we achieved and exceeded that guidance that we gave at the start of the year. And so this is not like a wet paper tissue waving in the air.
This is something we take very seriously. And the — and so what can we rely upon and we felt as though those numbers, which I know are cautious. I know that they’re below what many other people have and calling out 30 for a 737 or 53, 54 for an A320, those maybe seem to be low. And if you take 30 for a 787, that might also deem to be extremely low compared to what may be the outcome even though we know that very few were built in the in the fourth quarter. But if you take it as this is something that helps us plan the baseline of our business, sets our cost structures up properly. And should those sort of numbers that you mentioned materialize? Then just let’s imagine what that might be. And what that might be? Might be, I don’t know, 100, 200, probably more like a couple of — towards a couple of hundred million more revenue.
And if you take then the incremental drop-through for that, then you would be saying, while those incrementals look great, the margin rate should be above 23% because we’ve set our cost structure appropriately. And obviously, then things would begin to look progressively brighter during the course of the year, but that’s not what we know. That’s what we hope for. And so we set ourselves up with a guy which gives us a sense of security. If things turn actually better, we’ll welcome it. I think you could rely upon Howmet to manufacture well the operationally in control and convert at a good rate. And so that’s how we thought about it. And I don’t want to be hostage to giving a guidance, which could be, obviously, have a much more optimistic on it and then find myself being worried every month what did they really build, et cetera, et cetera.
