It’s a rare clearing in Boeing’s busy sky. The American aircraft manufacturer produced less bad results than feared when it published its annual accounts on Wednesday, January 31. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the aeronautics giant recorded a turnover of 22.02 billion dollars (around 20.4 billion euros) for a net loss of only 23 million dollars. Clearly, the aircraft manufacturer is doing a little less badly than expected by the financial markets which were betting on a turnover of 21.8 billion dollars and a loss of 188 million dollars.
A completely relative “better” because the American group is still losing money with its two main activities. Commercial aircraft production generated losses of $1.6 billion on revenue of $33.9 billion. Even the defense and space activity – for a long time Boeing’s cash cow – is in deficit, the victim of additional costs. Losses in this branch reached $1.76 billion for a turnover of $24.9 billion. Ultimately, for the fifth time in a row, the American group finished a year in the red.
It is true that the aircraft manufacturer is collecting problems, particularly with its medium-haul 737 MAX. Latest serious incident to date: on January 5, an emergency exit – a so-called stopper door – of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX came loose in mid-flight, while the plane was at an altitude of 5,000 meters . Fortunately, no passengers or crew members were injured.
Then, on January 20, this time it was a wheel of a Delta Airlines Boeing 757 that came off while the plane was lining up to take off from Atlanta airport (Georgia). A new setback which comes at a bad time as the American Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) has taken the decision to “ground”, that is to say to ban the flight, of 171 of the 219 Boeing 737 MAX 9s in service. Time for Boeing to resolve the production quality problems affecting this aircraft. Alaska Airlines discovered poorly secured installations while Delta Airlines discovered poorly screwed bolts on cap holders.
Long-haul relaunch
To remedy all these problems, Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, promised to “ take a break for as long as we need to take a break”. A setback that came at a bad time when Boeing had revived a little. In fact, production of the different versions of the 737 Max had started to rise again, going from 31 to 38 single-aisle aircraft per month. Beijing had even just authorized it to resume its deliveries of 737 MAX to China, interrupted since 2019.
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