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Boeing has recorded the second biggest annual loss in its 109-year history as it struggles with the fallout from a string of safety scandals.
The US planemaker lost US$11.8bn in 2024, taking its total losses since 2019 to more than US$35bn.
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In total, Boeing delivered just 348 jets in the last 12 months – down from 528 a year earlier and significantly less than the 765 delivered by Airbus.
However, Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, argued that the company had made progress on key areas to stabilise its operations and “continued to strengthen important aspects of our safety and quality plan”.
“My team and I are focused on making the fundamental changes needed to fully recover our company’s performance and restore trust with our customers, employees, suppliers, investors, regulators and all others who are counting on us,” he said.
The results follow a year to forget for Boeing, which began with the mid-air blowout of a door plug on board an Alaska Airlines MAX 9.
That incident significantly came after two MAXs crashed in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, killing 346 people and leading to claims there was a poor safety culture at the planemaker.
In response to the doorplug incident, the FAA capped 737 MAX production at just 38 planes per month – a decision the Trump administration has hinted will remain for the foreseeable future.
Later, in September, it emerged Boeing’s Starliner space capsule would return to Earth from the ISS without its astronauts following a problem with its thrusters.
The decision meant Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will now not come home until “no earlier than late March 2025” and will do so on a rival SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Previously, Boeing and NASA strongly denied any suggestion the pair would not return on Starliner, despite the potential to send it back home autonomously without crew.
The accumulation of problems at Boeing led it to announce late last year that it would cut 10 per cent of the company’s overall workforce, or around 17,000 roles, within months.
“Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” Ortberg told staff.
Other issues that plagued Boeing in 2024 included the delay in delivering its upcoming flagship 777x long-range passenger jet until 2026 and the removal of the head of its defence and space division, Ted Colbert III.
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says:Seriously, one would have to be desperate to take on a senior exec. job with Boeing at this time, at every corner there is a new problem and in real terms their commercial aircraft are old type/s just revamped, nothing new and state of the art. Their B777 series 300 must be good otherwise the likes of Emirates would move on so whatever the current problem with the “X” is, for heavens sake fix it asap. As for the MAX, well up front it may well be the ace but every other place where the real work is done we are talking about just a revamped FJ Holden whilst at Toulouse they are producing new types for the years to come. Personally, I don’t like single aisle long range aircraft, been there done that so it is a shame that Boeing hasn’t come up with a modern variant of say the B767 which has the 250/275 ish seat market covered and of course has the range to suit, the next step being the B777X. Similarly, Sir Tim Clarks’ recent interview re an upgraded A380 could well be taken up by Boeing with an extended upper deck and revamped B747 with a say 625 seat capacity in three classes with modern day Rolls engines. The upgrading of both the A380 and B747 could be achieved in a fraction of the time needed for a complete new type and time is of the essence here and I don’t think we can wait that long. China may well beat us to the flag.