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Boeing has slumped to its second-largest annual loss, capping a turbulent 12 months as the plane maker battles to recover from the fallout of a door panel blowout and a labour strike.
The aircraft maker on Tuesday reported a net loss of $11.8bn for the 2024 fiscal year, second only to its loss in 2020, on revenue of $66.5bn. It also burnt through $14.3bn in free cash for the year, compared with the $4.4bn it generated in 2023.
For the second consecutive year, the company declined to issue guidance. Chief executive Kelly Ortberg said Boeing was focused on “making the fundamental changes needed to fully recover” both financial performance and public trust.
“We made progress on key areas to stabilise our operations during the quarter and continued to strengthen important aspects of our safety and quality plan,” he said.
Last week, Boeing unexpectedly announced a wider fourth-quarter loss on lower revenue than Wall Street anticipated, in addition to burning through $3.5bn in cash between October and December and taking $2.8bn in charges.
Boeing’s stock fell 32 per cent in 2024 while the S&P 500 index rose by about 23 per cent. Its shares were fractionally lower in pre-market trading on Tuesday following its results.
The company was rocked in 2024 by the fallout from a door panel blowing off a commercial jet last January at 16,000 feet. The incident prompted the group to review its manufacturing processes and regulators to cap production of the 737 Max at 38 per month.
Then-chief executive Dave Calhoun said in March he would step down from the top job. Ortberg succeeded him in August, a little more than a month before 33,000 workers launched a six-week strike to improve pay and working conditions.
The company also was adversely affected by losses on fixed-price contracts in its defence business and a high-profile debacle that saw Nasa choose rival SpaceX over Boeing to bring astronauts back to Earth from the International Space Station. The head of the defence business left the company on short notice in September.
Boeing’s largest annual net loss, of $11.9bn, came in 2020 after the worldwide grounding of the 737 Max following two fatal crashes was compounded by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on aviation.
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