Tag: Boeing

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Boeing works with Trump on jet cost concerns

Dennis Muilenburg
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg speaks with reporters after meeting with Donald Trump. (Worldwide Trends via YouTube)

After meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg says he’s making a “personal commitment” to keep the cost of the next two Air Force One jets below $4 billion.

“We’re going to get it done for less than that, and we’re committed to working together to make sure that happens,” Muilenburg told reporters on Dec. 21.

Trump threatened in a Dec. 6 tweet to have the Air Force One deal canceled because “costs are out of control, more than $4 billion.” But since then, Muilenburg and other executives have smoothed over the dispute. Wednesday’s meeting in Palm Beach appeared to cement the rapprochement with Trump.

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Boeing trims 777 jet production, raises dividend

Boeing 777
A Boeing 777 jet is assembled at the company’s plant in Everett. (Boeing Photo)

The Boeing Co.’s decision to trim back production of its wide-body 777 jet is likely to bring bad news for employment at its plant in Everett, Wash., while a boost in the company’s quarterly dividend should come as good news for investors.

The bad-news, good-news situation was laid out on Dec. 12, sparking ups and downs in Boeing’s share price. By the end of today’s trading, the price was slightly down.

The planned cutback in 777 production from the current 8.3 jets per month to five per month next August points to a dramatic softening in the market for twin-aisle, wide-body jets. Production of Boeing’s 747 jumbo jets has been reduced as well. “The twin-aisle market is glutted,” Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters.

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SpaceX delays flying astronauts until 2018

Dragon at space station
An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s crew-capable Dragon approaching a port on the International Space Station with a cargo Dragon in the foreground. (NASA Photo)

NASA has confirmed that the commercial space taxis being developed by SpaceX and the Boeing Co. will start carrying astronauts to the International Space Station no earlier than 2018, and there’s a chance the schedule could slip even further.

Any further schedule delays could create further complications, considering that NASA hasn’t purchased seats aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft for flights past 2018. In September, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said NASA wasn’t “presently looking at any additional seats beyond those that we have already purchased.”

Until SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner enter service, the Soyuz vehicles provide the only approved way to get astronauts to and from the space station. NASA’s most recent reservation with the Russians sets aside seats through the end of 2018, at a cost of $81.7 million per round trip.

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Boeing and Iran Air announce $16.6 billion deal

Iran Air 747 jet
Iran Air already operates Boeing planes such as this 747 jet. (Aero Icarus Photo – CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Boeing Co. and Iran Air say they have signed a sale agreement for 80 jets, valued at a list price of $16.6 billion.

The deal announced today follows through on a memorandum of agreement that was laid out in June, as well as a U.S. government license that was issued to Boeing in September. The big question is whether the sale will continue to pass muster next year once the Trump administration and a new Congress have a chance to weigh in.

The agreement covers 50 single-aisle 737 MAX 8 jets, 15 wide-body 777-300ER jets, and 15 777-9s. That last bunch of jets will be derivatives of the 777-300ER, part of the 777X program that has yet to enter production.

Boeing said the first deliveries would be made in 2018, while Iran’s state-owned IRNA news agency quoted an aviation official as saying the jets will be delivered over the course of 10 years.

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Boeing donates $1 million to Trump inauguration

Trump Force One
The plane that Donald Trump used during the campaign, nicknamed Trump Force One, is a Boeing 757-200 jet. (Trump Organization via YouTube)

The Boeing Co. donated its traditional $1 million to support President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration celebration, days before Trump dinged the jetmaker over the projected multibillion-dollar cost of the future Air Force One planes.

“We are pleased to continue our tradition of supporting presidential inaugurations,” Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe told GeekWire in an emailed statement.

That traditional level is $1 million, the same amount that Boeing contributed for President Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremonies in 2013.

The Trump inaugural committee sent out its package for underwriting next month’s festivities a little more than a week ago, and Boeing quickly got on board.

The donation was firmed up by Dec. 5 – a day before Trump tweeted his displeasure about the Air Force One cost estimates, complained that Boeing “is doing a little bit of a number,” and called for a cancellation of the order.

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After Boeing and Ford … secretary of state?

Image: Alan Mulally
Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally talks about his management philosophy at Seattle University. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle)

Update for 8:30 p.m. PT Dec. 10: News outlets are reporting that Donald Trump is expected to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, and not Alan Mulally, as his secretary of state.

Original report from Dec. 8: Former Boeing and Ford executive Alan Mulally was on the schedule to sit down with Donald Trump today, setting off buzz that the president-elect may be considering the management guru as his pick for secretary of state.

Fox News quoted unnamed sources as saying that Trump was expected to discuss the secretary of state scenario with Mulally during a meeting at Trump Tower in New York.

Transition spokesman Jason Miller deflected questions about the issue during a teleconference with reporters, saying only that Trump has been meeting with a wide variety of people to discuss policy as well as potential posts in the incoming administration.

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Boeing buys Liquid Robotics to boost sea robots

Wave Glider
Liquid Robotics’ Wave Glider floats on the surface of the ocean, but it’s propelled by a wave-powered undersea glider. (Liquid Robotics Photo)

The Boeing Co. says it has agreed to acquire Liquid Robotics, its teammate in a years-long effort to create surfboard-sized robots that can use wave power to roam the seas.

The acquisition is expected to help Boeing create military communication networks that can transmit information autonomously from the sea to satellites via Sensor Hosting Autonomous Remote Craft, or SHARCs.

Liquid Robotics was founded in 2007 and currently has about 100 employees in California and Hawaii. Once the deal is completed, the company will become a subsidiary of Boeing. The arrangement is similar to the one that applies to Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary that is headquartered in Bingen, Wash., and manufactures ScanEagle military-grade drones.

Just as the fixed-wing ScanEagle drones can gather and transmit data while they’re airborne, SHARCs can monitor maritime operations and send the information back via satellite to their handlers. Boeing also makes a 50-ton underwater robot called Echo Voyager that can explore the deep sea for six months at a time, as well as two smaller unmanned undersea vehicles. The SHARCs can serve as communication relays for those undersea robots.

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Donald Trump disses Air Force One price tag

Air Force One
The Air Force One planes are Boeing 747-200s, to be replaced by the Boeing 747-8. (Boeing Photo)

By Todd Bishop and Alan Boyle

President Obama has expressed a deep appreciation for Air Force One, describing the current Boeing 747-200 planes as the best perk of the job. President-elect Donald Trump, who is accustomed to flying in his own Boeing 757, isn’t as enamored with Boeing’s contract to build a new generation of Air Force One planes.

In a tweet today, Trump claimed that costs on the project are “out of control” and called for the cancellation of a deal with the Boeing Co. for two 747-8 aircraft that would serve as Air Force One.

In follow-up comments to reporters in New York, Trump said the cost of the planes was “ridiculous.”

“I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number,” he said. “We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.”

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WTO rules against Boeing’s 777X tax break

Wing autoclave
A giant autoclave is ready to “cook” parts for the Boeing 777X wings. (Credit: Boeing)

In the latest chapter of a years-long legal battle, the World Trade Organization says Washington state’s tax break for production of the Boeing 777X jetliner runs counter to international trade rules.

“We expect the U.S. to respect the rules, uphold fair competition, and withdraw these subsidies without any delay,” Cecilia Malmström, the European Union’s trade commissioner, said in a statement issued after today’s ruling.

However, U.S. officials and Boeing executives signaled that the battle would continue. The fight over the tax breaks is part of a larger dispute between the Boeing Co. and its European rival, Airbus, with U.S. and EU officials in the middle.

Boeing’s general counsel, J. Michael Luttig, went so far as to claim in a statement that today’s ruling was “a complete victory for the United States, Washington state and Boeing.”

The way Luttig saw it, the WTO rejected “virtually every claim made by the EU in this case” and found that Boeing “has not received a penny of impermissible subsidies.”

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Boeing names its next CEO for commercial jets

Boeing logo
The Boeing Co., which has its corporate headquarters in Chicago, has created a new business unit for aviation services with its headquarters in Dallas. (Boeing Photo)

The Boeing Co. set a huge organizational transition into motion today by bringing in an outside aerospace executive as the next head of its commercial airplane unit and setting up a new business unit for aviation services.

GE Aviation Services’ president and CEO, Kevin McAllister, will become the next president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The business unit’s current head, Ray Conner, will ease out of that role during a transitional period culminating in his retirement at the end of 2017, the company said in a statement.

The new unit, called Boeing Global Services, will integrate the customer service operations currently provided through Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Boeing Defense, Space and Security.

Veteran Boeing executive Stanley Deal will be president and CEO of the services unit, which will have a small core headquarters based in Dallas.

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