Boeing will temporarily shut down airplane production at its plant in Renton (pictured) and in Everett. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
In the wake of the first reported death of an employee in Puget Sound due to COVID-19, Boeing announced today that it’s begun the process of shutting down production operations at its facilities in the Seattle area.
A 14-day suspension is due to begin on March 25, Boeing said in a news release. The suspension will also apply to maintenance activities at Moses Lake, Wash., where more than 250 grounded 737 MAX planes are parked.
The company said the suspension would provide an opportunity to assess the impact of the “accelerating spread of the coronavirus in the region.”
Boeing’s 777X jet takes a test flight. (Boeing Photo)
Boeing says its CEO and its chairman will forgo all pay until the end of the year — and that’s just one of the steps the company is taking to ensure that it weathers the financial effects of the coronavirus epidemic.
During her term as South Carolina’s governor, Nikki Haley paid tribute to the expansion of Boeing’s operations in the state. (South Carolina Governor’s Office Photo / Sam Holland)
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who has been touted as a future presidential candidate, says she’s resigning from Boeing’s board of directors to protest the company’s request for $60 billion in federal aid.
Boeing has been hit hard by the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the aviation industry, as well as the continued grounding of the 737 MAX fleet in the wake of two fatal crashes. This week the company said it supports a minimum of $60 billion in access to private and public liquidity for the aerospace manufacturing industry.
“I cannot support a move to lean on the federal government for a stimulus or bailout that prioritizes our company over others and relies on taxpayers to guarantee our financial position,” she wrote. “I have long held strong convictions that this is not the role of government.”
Restaurants at Sea-Tac International Airport are continuing to serve passengers on a grab-to-go or order-to-go basis. (Port of Seattle Photo)
The number of airline passengers taking off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has fallen by two-thirds, due to the coronavirus outbreak and its effect on air travel, officials at the Port of Seattle said today.
Sea-Tac typically sees 50,000 people going through its checkpoints daily at this time of year, but that number has fallen to around 16,000 to 17,000, Lance Lyttle, the airport’s managing director, told reporters at a news briefing.
“That does not include the connecting passengers that would be coming through,” he said. “Normally we would probably have over 140,000, 150,000 passengers in the airport as a whole.”
While passenger traffic has dropped sharply, domestic cargo traffic is at higher than usual levels due to increased online ordering, Lyttle said.
A Port of Seattle blog posting lists 10 shops and restaurants that have temporarily closed, primarily due to restrictions on food service. About two dozen other restaurants remain open on a grab-and-go or order-to-go basis.
Lyttle said Sea-Tac will be joining with other airports around the country in seeking a $10 billion aid package from the federal government to help them cope with the outbreak’s financial effects. That would be in addition to an aid package sought by the nation’s airlines, which is said to amount to $50 billion.
TeTra’s aerial vehicle looks like a cross between a motorcycle and an ultralight. (teTra Photo via Twitter)
The Boeing-backed GoFly Prize program gave out a $100,000 award during its inaugural fly-off in California, but the $1 million grand prize went unclaimed because none of the competitors could go fly.
Randy Tinseth, vice president for marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, takes a question during the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance’s annual meeting in Lynnwood, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
LYNNWOOD, Wash. — One of Boeing’s top market analysts says the concerns stirred up by China’s Wuhan coronavirus outbreak will affect airline profitability, passenger air traffic — and the economy as a whole.
Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said that effect is likely to throw an additional twist into his generally optimistic outlook for the aviation market in 2020.
The Boeing-built EA-18G Growler is a variant of the F/A-18F Super Hornet that is specialized for tactical jamming and electronic protection. (Boeing Photo)
The era of remote-controlled combat jets has come a little closer in the wake of a demonstration staged by Boeing and the Navy to fly two autonomously controlled EA-18G Growlers as uncrewed air systems.
Senior Aerospace AMT, an Arlington, Wash.-based supplier for the troubled 737 MAX and other Boeing airplanes, says it will lay off 72 employees starting in April.
The first 737 MAX 8 plane undergoes final assembly at Boeing’s Renton plant in 2015. (Boeing Photo)
Boeing doubled its estimate for the financial effect of the 737 MAX crisis today and recorded a net annual loss for the first time since 1997 — but the company’s stock price rose nevertheless, reflecting market sentiment that the worst may be over.
An additional $9.2 billion was set aside to cover projected costs associated with the aftermath of two catastrophic crashes involving a 737 MAX 8 jet in Indonesia in 2018 and the same model in Ethiopia in 2019. That brought the total projected cost to $18.4 billion.
