China has ordered its airlines not to take any further deliveries of Boeing Co. jets as part of the tit-for-tat trade war that’s seen US President Donald Trump levy tariffs of as high as 145% on Chinese goods.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Boeing could hand over some of its aircraft that were destined for Chinese airlines to other carriers after China stopped taking deliveries of its planes amid a trade war with the United States.
“They have in fact stopped taking delivery of aircraft due to the tariff environment,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Wednesday.
Ortberg said that a few 737 Max planes that were in China set to be delivered to carriers there have been flown back to the U.S.
He said some jets that were intended for Chinese customers, as well as aircraft the company was planning to build for China later this year, could go to other customers.
“There’s plenty of customers out there looking for the Max aircraft,” Ortberg said. “We’re not going to wait too long. I’m not going to let this derail the recovery of our company.”
The CEO’s comments came after Boeing reported a narrower-than-expected loss for the first quarter and cash burn that came in better than analysts feared as airplane deliveries surged in the three months ended March 31.
Kelly Ortberg, CEO of Boeing, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Jan. 28th, 2025.
CNBC
President Donald Trump earlier this month issued sweeping tariffs on imports to the U.S. While he paused some of the highest rates, the trade war with China has only ramped up.
Trump said Tuesday that he’s open to taking a less confrontational approach to trade talks with China, calling the current 145% tariff on Chinese imports “very high.”
“It won’t be that high. … No, it won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down substantially. But it won’t be zero,” Trump said.
Boeing is preparing to ask for Federal Aviation Administration approval to ramp up production of its bestselling 737 Max jets to 42 a month later this year, CEO Kelly Ortberg said Wednesday, as airplane deliveries picked up this year and the company narrowed its losses.
Boeing reported a first-quarter net loss of $31 million, improvement from a loss of $355 million a year earlier, as revenue rose 18% to $19.5 billion, slightly ahead of analysts’ estimates.
The company’s cash burn of about $2.3 billion was an improvement over the nearly $4 billion it used in the first quarter of 2024, and was better than analysts expected. Ortberg told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the company is on track to generate cash in the second half of the year.
Shares of Boeing gained about 6% in premarket trading.
The results include only the impact of global tariffs as of March 31, the company said. Executives will get questions on Wednesday’s 10:30 a.m. ET earnings call about tariffs as the manufacturer is currently caught in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s trade war, which is set to drive up prices of aircraft and imported parts and materials.
GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp said Tuesday that he’s met with Trump and suggested restoring duty-free trade for the aerospace industry, a major U.S. exporter that helps soften the United States’ trade deficit. GE, which makes aircraft engines, and RTX said they expect tariffs to cost more than $1 billion combined this year.
“While we are closely watching the developments in global trade, our strong start to the year combined with the demand for airplanes and our half trillion-dollar backlog for our products and services gives us the flexibility we need to navigate this environment,” Boeing CEO Ortberg said in a staff note Wednesday.
Here’s how Boeing performed compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG expected for the first quarter:
Loss per share: 49 cents adjusted vs. $1.29 loss expected
Revenue: $19.5 billion vs. $19.45 billion expected
On a per-share basis, the company reported a loss of 16 cents, compared with a loss of 56 cents during the same quarter a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items related to pensions costs and income taxes, among others, Boeing reported a loss of 49 cents per share.
Ortberg, who was hired last year and tasked with getting the manufacturer past a series of safety and manufacturing crises, outlined progress, including production rates of its best-selling 737 Max.
The CEO has in recent months touted improved safety and manufacturing processes at Boeing’s factories as he tries to guide the company past several accidents, including a door plug that blew out from a packed flight midair in January 2024 after the 737 Max left Boeing’s factory without key bolts installed. There were no fatalities or major injuries.
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Last week, Boeing released results of an employee survey that showed that only 27% would highly recommend working at Boeing and that 67% felt proud of working at Boeing, down from 91% in 2013. Less than half of employee respondents said they had confidence in senior leaders’ ability to “make decisions, communicate direction and respond to concerns raised by employees.”
Since the January 2024 accident, Boeing must receive approval from the FAA to increase production of the 737 Max to above 38 jets a month. Boeing had been producing significantly below that level after the accident and a nearly two-month union strike last year halted much of the company’s production.
Revenue in Boeing’s commercial airplane unit rose 75% during the first quarter from a year ago to $8.1 billion, with deliveries up to 130 planes from 83 a year ago.
“We are moving in the right direction and making progress as we reported our first-quarter 2025 results today,” Ortberg said in Wednesday’s staff memo. “From delivering more airplanes to scoring a transformational win for the fighter of the future, there is a lot of good work happening across our teams, and we are seeing positive results in the four key areas of our recovery plan that will position us for the rest of the year and beyond.”
Boeing has been refocusing its efforts on its core businesses. On Tuesday, it announced it would sell parts of its digital aviation businesses, including its Jeppesen navigation unit, to Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion in an all-cash deal.
Revenue in its defense unit, which has been plagued with cost-overruns and quality issues, fell 9% during the first quarter to $6.3 billion, though the company recently scored a major win after Trump awarded Boeing a contract to build the U.S. Air Force’s all-new fighter jet, dubbed the F-47.
The production line for the Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft is pictured at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, November 18, 2021.
Jason Redmond | Reuters
President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariffs are set to drive up the cost of Boeing and Airbus planes, GE Aerospace engines, and hundreds of other aerospace and defense products, threatening an industry that helps soften the U.S. trade deficit by more than $100 billion a year.
“It certainly makes things more expensive for the industry,” Dak Hardwick, vice president of international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association, which represents Boeing, GE Aerospace, Airbus and dozens of other aerospace and defense companies, said of the tariffs.
The industry group said it is asking the Trump administration to uphold provisions in a nearly half-century old trade agreement that allows for duty-free trade of civilian aircraft and imports tied to defense and national security.
“The line is certainly long” for requests to the White House, Hardwick said.
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Trump’s executive order announcing the tariffs said trade and economic policies around the world have exacerbated a decline in overall U.S. manufacturing.
Regarding innovation in the defense sector, the order stated, “If the United States wishes to maintain an effective security umbrella to defend its citizens and homeland, as well as for its allies and partners, it needs to have a large upstream manufacturing and goods-producing ecosystem to manufacture these products without undue reliance on imports for key inputs.”
The aerospace industry has long been a top exporter for the United States. At Boeing alone, more than two-thirds of its airplane orders over the past decade came from customers outside of the United States, according to company data.
“Free trade is very important to us,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. “We really are the ideal kind of an export company where we’re outselling internationally. It’s creating U.S. jobs, long-term high value U.S. jobs. So it’s important that we continue to have access to that market and that we don’t get in a situation where certain markets become closed to us.”
President and CEO of Boeing Kelly Ortberg testifies before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 02, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The industry has mostly bought and sold planes and parts without having to pay tariffs under a 45-year-old trade agreement, which would be derailed by Trump’s new tariffs. The president this week introduced levies of 10% on countries around the world, with higher duties on certain countries and regions, some of which like Europe, are key to the aerospace industry.
Imported steel and aluminum, other key materials in airplanes, are subject to separate sector-level duties that Trump announced earlier this year.
“President Trump has been clear: if you make your product in America, you won’t have to worry about tariffs,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in an email.
Tariffs are paid by the importer, and the increased prices due to the levies would either have to be absorbed by the airplane or engine maker, by the still-fragile supply chain or by the end consumer, said Hardwick.
Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu said in a note Thursday that a price jump on “any product within 12 months is eaten by the [original equipment manufacturer], assuming new inventory buy. Outside that time period, ultimately the buyer and hence consumer.”
Boeing and the S&P 500
Prices for planes are negotiated in advance, and airlines have to often wait years for aircraft, so material costs can shift dramatically over that period.
“This is not where you put money down for an automobile and it ends up in your driveway” in three months, Hardwick said.
Shares of Boeing, engine maker GE and airlines tumbled again Friday, adding to the market rout after Trump announced the tariffs Wednesday.
“This is the one manufacturing sector where America has, has enjoyed a tremendous trade surplus,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory. “So the idea of fighting a trade war for this industry, it’s living in a crystal palace hurling giant boulders.”
Global supply chain
The tariffs are also a new strain on the aerospace industry, which still has a fragile supply chain in the wake of Covid, with some parts in short supply. Major supplies have tried to quickly hire workers and ramp up production during a post-pandemic travel boom.
But airplane makers still haven’t kept up with demand.
An Airbus SE A321 plane fuselage is lifted with a crane at the company’s final assembly line facility in Mobile, Alabama
Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Even a “Made in the USA” label for an airplane is a misnomer.
For example, the supply chain for a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which is assembled in South Carolina, spans from Japan to Italy.
Its European rival, Airbus, has a Mobile, Alabama, factory but is still on the hook for tariffs for imported parts, from wings to fuselages.
“It doesn’t matter who owns the company. If an item crosses the border, it will have to be paid by importer of record,” Hardwick said.
Airbus has expanded the factory since the first Alabama-assembled Airbus A321, an aircraft for JetBlue Airways named “BluesMobile,” rolled out nine years ago. Its bet on increasing U.S. output of its jets, which are still largely made in Europe, also includes assembly of smaller A220s in Alabama, for customers that include JetBlue and Delta Air Lines.
American Airlines workers perform maintenance on CFM-56 engine in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Erin Black | CNBC
Meanwhile, continuing along the supply chain, General Electric and France’s Safran have a joint venture in which they make top-selling CFM engines, which power both Boeing and Airbus narrow-body jets. Each company manufactures certain portions of engines, which are sent to factories in Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina for GE and outside of Paris for Safran.
Thousands of imported replacement parts for engines and other aircraft parts, many of which come from abroad, could also become more expensive.
“There’s no such thing as a national jet,” Aboulafia said.
Boeing workers are pictured exiting a gate below an image of a Boeing 737-800 aircraft as Boeing’s 737 factory teams hold the first day of a “Quality Stand Down” for the 737 program in Renton, Washington on January 25, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Boeing‘s cash burn is easing this quarter and its factories are improving to deliver more planes this year, the aerospace giant’s finance chief said Wednesday, as the company works to turn a corner on several manufacturing and safety crises.
Boeing shares ended the day nearly 7% higher after CFO Brian West’s upbeat comments, leading the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 higher.
“We think we’re off to a good start for the year,” West said at a Bank of America investor conference. He said cash burn improvement could be in the “hundreds of millions” of dollars.
Boeing went through about $14 billion last year, including more than $4 billion in the last three months of 2024, when it struggled through a nearly two-month labor strike at its largest factories and faced other production problems. Boeing last posted an annual profit in 2018.
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West said the massive fire at a Pennsylvania aviation fastener factory in February won’t have a near-term production impact or affect Boeing’s goal to get monthly output to 38 737 Max aircraft a month and seven 787 Dreamliners because of its elevated inventory.
The FAA last year barred Boeing from ramping production up beyond 38 Max planes a month following the January 2024 midair blow out of a door plug on a passenger jet. New Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the cap remains in place, following a visit to Boeing’s 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington, last week.
Boeing is still working up to its capped production rate.
West also brushed off immediate concerns about President Donald Trump‘s proposed tariffs, but said any impact depends on how long the uncertainty lasts.
They were originally supposed to be at the International Space Station for a little over a week, but their stay was extended after the BoeingStarliner capsule that they took in June experienced issues.
Instead, Wilmore and Williams are returning on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams pose inside the hatch connecting Boeing’s Starliner to the International Space Station on
NASA
The two U.S. astronauts who had been at the International Space Station for nine months after their faulty Boeing Starliner capsule returned without them are finally heading home.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams left Earth in June on a test flight that was originally intended to last about nine days.
But their stay was extended after thrusters on Boeing’s Starliner capsule “Calypso”failed during docking, raising concerns about the ship’s ability to carry them home. The agency ultimately sent the capsule back empty after it was docked for about three months at the space station, saying it wanted to “further understand the root causes” of the spacecraft’s issues.
NASA also announced that Wilmore and Williams, who are both veteran astronauts and retired Navy test pilots, would return on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft instead. The agency adjusted its rotation of astronauts as a result, removing two people from SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission — which is returning to Earth this week — to make room for Wilmore and Williams.
That capsule carrying the two people on Crew-9 arrived at the ISS back in September. Crews rotate on the ISS, which means that each group of astronauts works until the next arrives at the space station, when a ceremonial “handover” occurs.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off, carrying NASA’s Crew-10 astronauts to the International Space Station at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., March 14, 2025.
Joe Skipper | Reuters
NASA had originally planned for SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission — which needed to arrive before the Crew-9 members could come back down — to launch in February, but it was delayed by about a month.
The rocket carrying the four new crew members launched on Friday evening, and its capsule docked at the space station about 29 hours later.
Wilmore, Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are set to splash down Tuesday evening, about 19 hours after closing the hatch on the SpaceX capsule, according to NASA’s estimated schedule.
The Starliner crew flight test was supposed to check a final box for Boeing and deliver a key asset for NASA. The agency was hoping to fulfill its dream of having two competing companies — Boeing and Elon Musk‘s SpaceX — flying alternating missions to the ISS.
Instead, it’s unclear what Boeing’s future crewed space plans are. The company has lost more than $2 billion on its Starliner spacecraft.
This image taken from video posted by NASA shows, from left, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague and Suni Williams speaking during a news conference, Tuesday, March 4, 2025.
NASA | AP
Wilmore and Williams’ journey became entangled in politics once President Donald Trump took office. Trump and Musk, who has become a close advisor to the president, urged a quicker Crew-10 launch and said without evidence that the two astronauts were “stranded” on the space station and that the Biden administration had kept them up there for political reasons. NASA had delayed the Crew-10 launch in December to allow more time to process a new Dragon capsule, but decided to use a reusable capsule to cut down on wait time.
NASA’s plans for returning the two astronauts have remained consistent since the agency announced them in August.
During their extended stay, Wilmore and Williams became part of a normal rotation, conducting scientific experiments and routine maintenance as any other astronaut on rotation at the ISS would. Williams also conducted a spacewalk.
Williams has said repeatedly that the pair doesn’t feel “abandoned” at the ISS, but that she was looking forward to returning home to see her family and her two dogs.
“It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us,” she told reporters earlier this month.
A Lufthansa First Class “Allegris” cabin, which was set up outside the show.
Peter Kneffel | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Heated or cooled seats. Ultra-high-definition TV screens. Benches. Convertible beds. All-aisle access. And of course, the coveted privacy door.
Ever-more luxurious first- and business-class cabins that have hundreds of parts and require regulator approval are the latest hold-up as new airplanes arrive late to customers, according to the heads of the world’s biggest airplane manufacturers.
Boeing has 787 Dreamliners, a twin-aisle jetliner used on some of the world’s longest flights, on the ground at its South Carolina factory “that are held up for delivery for the seats, which obviously go in pretty late in the assembly process,” CEO Kelly Ortberg said at a Barclays industry conference on Feb. 20.
Part of the problem is airlines’ rush to win over high-paying customers by offering comforts and more of the scarce space on board — even if a few extra inches.
“It’s getting the seats certified, and it’s not actually the butt part of the seat,” Ortberg continued. “It’s the cabinet and the doors … for first class and business class. These are pretty complex systems, and getting those certified has taken both the seat suppliers and us longer than anticipated.”
Similar issues are hitting Boeing’s main rival Airbus, the CEO of the European manufacturer, Guillaume Faury, said on an earnings call the same day.
“We have delays in seats” as well as cabin “monuments” like galleys and closets that are “delaying the time at which we can deliver a plane fully completed,” Faury said.
Together the companies account for the vast majority of the commercial airplane market.
Aircraft deliveries are crucial for manufacturers’ revenue because customers pay the bulk of a jetliner’s price when they receive the plane, rather than when they first order it.
A first-class compartment of a commercial passenger plane in the 1950s.
Airlines and aerospace manufacturers are highly regulated, and new seat designs, some features and even cabin layouts must win approval from regulators before taking to the skies. Passengers also need to be able to safely exit those seats in the case of an emergency.
Some new aircraft cabins are still awaiting certification, and delays are adding to years of supply chain strains and labor shortages coming out of the pandemic.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has fired hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration workers in a cost-cutting spree. The agency said the positions aren’t “safety critical,” but didn’t say whether staffing issues could further slow down aircraft or other certifications.
Getting the state-of-the-art seats installed at the front of the cabin means millions in revenue for airlines. For example, Delta Air Lines on Friday was selling a round-trip standard economy ticket between New York and Paris during the first week of May for $816. Move to Delta One, the carrier’s top-tier seat, and the same route jumps to $5,508.
New planes’ longer ranges compared with older models are opening up new nonstop routes for carriers.
“No one is happy right now,” about the delays, said Henry Harteveldt, founder of travel consulting firm Atmosphere Research Group. “They’re not able to get their new show ponies in.”
Members of staff display the first class cabin of a Qatar Airways Boeing 787, at the Farnborough International Air Show in Farnborough, England, Monday, July 22, 2024.
Alberto Pezzali | AP
A business-class seat can have about 1,500 parts, and weight is key, especially for an industry that has taken great pains to remove fuel-costing weight on board. That includes using thinner paper for seatback magazines to lighter cutlery.
Germany’s Recaro, a major airplane seat manufacturer, says its R7 business class seat weighs about 80 kilograms, or around 176 pounds.
“You’re trying to make everything as light as you can and also have a pleasing aesthetic value,” said Harteveldt.
Switzerland’s flag carrier, Swiss, said the center of gravity shifted in some of its aircraft after testing out its new seat models, so it has to make design changes and is looking at a “weight plate” before the new seats can fly commercially.
Customers “clearly signal to us that it is time to modernize the cabin interiors of our long-haul fleet, especially the [Airbus] A330,” a spokesman for Swiss said in an email. “At the same time, we are working on solutions and observing trends and technologies that could allow us to achieve a different and more useful weight distribution.”
Luxury travel boom
New business class seats cost in the low-six digits apiece, which “compares to the price of luxury car,” according to Recaro.
To airline executives they’re worth it. They say customers, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, have shown they are willing to pay up to sit toward the front of the cabin.
Delta, for example, said in November that just 43% of its sales last year came from the main cabin, while 57% came from premium seats and its loyalty program. In 2010, 60% of revenue came from the main cabin.
CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC in January that the trend toward premium travel is likely to continue.
Airlines working to glow-up the front of their planes span the globe: Australia’s Qantas, Delta, American, JetBlue and others. Lufthansa’s new Allegris cabins on the Boeing 787s are held up in certification, a spokesman said.
Singapore Airlines said in November that it will bring first-class seats to its longest flights, more than 17 hours. CEO Goh Choon Phong said in a news release that the offerings will “push the boundaries of comfort, luxury, and modernity.”
A Singapore Airlines A380 first class suite
Leslie Josephs | CNBC
American Airlines, for its part, has been waiting for months to debut a new seat for its wide-body planes and just won approval for those on its 787-9 Dreamliner. A spokeswoman said the airline is working with regulators and that it plans to introduce the new suites on its Airbus A321XLR, a long-range version of a key Airbus plane, and its retrofitted Boeing 777-300ER later this year. It unveiled the seats in September 2022 and initially planned to debut them last year.
“The biggest thing I can say on all those fronts though is that we are dependent on the supply chain. Right now, that supply chain, especially in regard to seats, is very tight,” CEO Robert Isom said on an earnings call in October. He said the company’s message to suppliers and partners is: “‘Work with us to make sure that we get those — that equipment — on dock as expected,’ and we’re really pushing to make sure that that’s the case right now.”
President Donald Trump expressed frustration in recent days about the long wait for a pair of Boeing 747s that will serve as the new Air Force One planes.
The jets are years behind schedule. Trump negotiated the $4 billion contract for the aircraft during his first term, and it isn’t clear whether they’ll be ready during his current one. Cost overruns have totaled more than $2 billion to date.
Trump advisor Elon Musk is working with Boeing in hopes of delivering the aircraft faster, the manufacturer’s chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, reiterated on Thursday.
“The president’s clearly not happy with the delivery timing. I think he’s made that well known,” Ortberg said at a Barclays industrials conference. “Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements … to help us get the things that are non-value-added constraints out of the way so that we can move faster and get the president those airplanes delivered.”
Ortberg called Musk, CEO of SpaceX, which competes with Boeing’s defense and space unit, a “brilliant guy” who can “pretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirement and things that we can move out of the way.”
Aboard one of the current presidential 747s, Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he is considering alternatives.
“We may buy a plane or get a plane, or something,” he said, according to Reuters. Trump toured a 747 that was parked at Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport over the weekend, the outlet reported.
First Lady Melania Trump laughs as she watches US President Donald Trump cut with a saber into a cake representation of the new Air Force One design during the Commander-In-Chief inaugural ball at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Frustration is nothing new for Boeing’s airline customers who faced long delays for aircraft just as the post-pandemic travel boom was taking hold. A near-catastrophic door-plug blow out in January 2024 further slowed Boeing deliveries and prompted a leadership change.
Now some customers are growing more upbeat. Executives told CNBC that it appears the manufacturer has turned a corner under Ortberg, who took the helm in August.
“Boeing is doing a pretty miraculous job of turning around and becoming more reliable as a supplier,” United Airlines CFO Mike Leskinen said Wednesday at the same Barclays conference. “Our confidence that our MAX aircraft are going to be delivered on schedule has never been greater at my tenure at United Airlines.”
Bob Jordan, CEO of all-Boeing 737 carrier Southwest Airlines, said on a Jan. 30 earnings call: “While they still have much work to do, they appear to be on a good path, and we are feeling more optimistic.”
Speaking at the Barclays conference on Thursday, Boeing’s Ortberg said he doesn’t see any supply chain problems that would prevent the manufacturer from ramping up production of its cash-cow 737 Max planes, its bestseller, to 38 per month in the coming months.
Kelly Ortberg speaks at the 14th annual U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Foundation Aviation Summit in downtown Washington, D.C.
Kris Tripplaar | SIPPL Sipa USA | AP
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg on Tuesday laid out a recovery plan for the company that includes focusing on core businesses as he faces investors antsy for answers after the plane maker posted its sixth consecutive annual loss.
Boeing lost $3.86 billion in the last three months of 2024, taking about $3 billion in charges in its commercial aircraft unit and its defense and space business spanning aircraft from the Boeing 767 to the KC-46 tanker to the long-delayed pair of 747s that are set to serve as new Air Force One planes.
Boeing’s results were impacted, as expected, by a nearly two-month machinist strike that idled work on most of its aircraft and lengthened delivery delays to customers, which pay for the bulk of their planes when they’re received. Boeing said it burned through $3.5 billion in the fourth quarter, a difficult end to what was supposed to be a turnaround year. The company burned through $14.31 billion in 2024.
Boeing’s shares were little changed on Tuesday. The company released preliminary results last week showing a bigger loss and lower revenue than analysts expected.
The company’s annual loss totaled $11.83 billion, its largest since 2020, when it was grappling with a grounding of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max, after two fatal crashes and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“While it was a challenging year, we are seeing encouraging signs of progress as we work together to turn around our company,” Ortberg said in a staff memo.
Ortberg, a longtime aerospace executive whom Boeing hired out of retirement over the summer, said the company is focused on stabilizing output, fixing the company’s culture and refocusing on its main businesses.
“We are also preparing for the path ahead by continuing to make investments in our core businesses while streamlining our portfolio in areas that are not core to our future,” Ortberg said.
He is likely going to face questions during the company’s earnings call later Tuesday on Boeing’s progress with potentially spinning off units like its Jeppesen navigation unit.
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Boeing didn’t provide financial targets for 2025 on Tuesday, but executives will face questions about their production rate expectations.
Its defense unit’s revenue fell 20% to $5.4 billion for the quarter, and it took $1.7 billion in pretax charges.
“While charges for the quarter in BDS are disappointing, we have completed deep dives on all of our challenging fixed-price development programs,” Ortberg said. “We are now more proactive and clear-eyed on the risks.”
The commercial aircraft unit revenue fell 55% to $4.76 billion.
Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting:
Loss per share: $5.90 adjusted vs. $3.00 expected
Revenue: $15.24 billion vs. expected $16.21 billion
The company last posted a profit in 2018. In addition to the crashes and Covid, it has faced a host of manufacturing defects and cost overruns, and early last year, a near-catastrophic midair blowout of a door panel on a nearly new Max 9 jetliner as it climbed out of Portland, Oregon.
After the strike ended in November, Boeing resumed production of its 737 Max aircraft in December, and earlier this month, it restarted test flights of its 777X aircraft, which haven’t yet been certified by the FAA. Boeing is also working to certify the Max 7 and Max 10 aircraft, the smallest and largest models in the single-aisle Max family.
A Boeing banner and an F-15EX jet fighter during the Farnborough International Airshow, on 22nd July 2024, at Farnborough, England.
Richard Baker | In Pictures | Getty Images
While airline CEOs have largely supported Ortberg, key Boeing customers are still logging the effects of the delivery delays.
American Airlines said over the weekend it made further cuts to its schedule because of late deliveries of new Boeing 787 Dreamliners, which it also planned to use to launch a premium-seat-heavy configuration to capitalize on a consumer shift toward pricier, roomier seats.
It plans to suspend service between Miami and Paris in June and July, and cut down on frequencies between Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International to London in May, as well as from Dallas to Honolulu in June.
“We’ll be proactively reaching out to our impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements and remain committed to mitigating the impact of these Boeing delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network,” American said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the CEO of European budget airline Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, said Monday that the company had to cut its passenger traffic goal for the year because of “frustrating” Boeing delivery delays.
Ortberg and other Boeing leaders are likely to face questions during the 10 a.m. ET analyst call about cost overruns and delays in the company’s defense division, including for the Air Force One aircraft, as well as potential tariffs and other policies of the new Trump administration.
Snow blankets the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as a winter storm moves into the area on Jan. 10, 2025.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Airlines canceled more than 3,000 flights on Friday as a massive winter storm snarled travel across the Southern U.S., while more than 4,000 others were delayed.
Operations were further disrupted after a Delta Air LinesBoeing 757-300 halted takeoff because of an engine problem, shortly after 9 a.m. at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest and Delta’s main hub. The 201 passengers and seven crew members aboard were evacuated on emergency slides.
Four passengers reported minor injuries, with one transported and three treated on the scene, according to an airport spokesperson.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it’s investigating the incident.
“Delta’s flight crew followed established procedures to suspend the takeoff of flight 2668 from Atlanta (ATL) to Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) after an indication of an engine issue,” Delta said. “Nothing is more important than the safety of our people and customers, and we apologize to our customers for their experience. We are working to support our customers and get them to their destinations as safely and quickly as possible.”
Some 1,100 flights to and from Atlanta, more than half of the day’s schedule, were canceled, while upward of 400 more were delayed, according to flight tracker FlightAware. The airport had a ground stop in place, which halts flights bound for that airport at their origin so the facility isn’t overwhelmed with planes.
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Two of American Airlines‘ hubs of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport were also heavily affected by the storm, with more than 1,200 flights to and from those two airports canceled. Most of DFW’s flights were also canceled on Thursday as the storm dumped snow in the area.
Delta, Southwest, American and other carriers waived change fees and fare differences because of the storms and severe weather.
