Boeing’s president and CEO, David Calhoun, acknowledged during an NBC News interview with “Today” host Savannah Guthrie that a major U.S. airline will “most likely” go out of business due to fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.
Tag: Boeing
A Boeing-led team has presented the Royal Australian Air Force with its first “Loyal Wingman” aircraft, an AI-equipped drone that’s designed to fly in coordination with crewed military airplanes.
Boeing says it’s planning to reduce its workforce by 10% and cut back on production of wide-body jets in response to the coronavirus pandemic’s dramatic effect on the aviation industry.
“We will be a smaller company for a while,” David Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO and president, told investors today during a conference call.
The moves came as the company reported an adjusted loss of $1.7 billion and a negative cash flow of $4.7 billion for the first quarter of the year. It was the second quarterly loss in a row, but it wasn’t as bad as analysts feared. As a result, Boeing’s shares finished today’s trading session up nearly 6%, at a closing price of $139.
In a letter to employees, Calhoun said that the pandemic has delivered a “body blow to our business.”
“The aviation industry will take years to return to the levels of traffic we saw just a few months ago,” he wrote.
In response, the company has started executing a plan for a 10% reduction in total workforce through a combination of voluntary layoffs, natural turnover and involuntary layoffs as necessary.
Boeing terminated its two-year-old, $4.2 billion agreement to acquire the commercial operations of Embraer, a leading regional-jet manufacturer based in Brazil, as the April 24 deadline for sealing the deal passed.
Boeing has put its chief financial officer in charge of a newly formed group called Enterprise Operations, Finance & Strategy, as part of a reorganization aimed at streamlining the company’s top leadership and preparing for what Boeing calls “the post-pandemic industry footprint.”
Boeing says it’s planning to resume all commercial airplane production in the Seattle region starting next week, more than three weeks after operations were shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak.
About 27,000 employees will be brought back to work sites ranging from Boeing’s wide-body airplane factory in Everett to its 737 production facility in Renton, using a phased approach, the company said in a news release.
Boeing said it’s taking extra precautions to keep its workers safe.
Boeing says it will bring about 2,500 employees back to its facilities in the Puget Sound region and Moses Lake, Wash., starting as early as April 13, for limited operations that will focus on defense programs and 737 MAX storage and maintenance.
Boeing has shut down airplane production until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s pushing forward with production of medical equipment to shut down the virus’ spread.
The company says its first shipment of 2,300 face shields, manufactured using its 3-D printing capabilities in Puget Sound and other locales across the United States, was handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services today.
In a news release, Boeing said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will deliver the shields to the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, which has been turned into a treatment site for COVID-19 patients. Medical professionals will use the shields as part of their personal protection equipment.
In addition to the shields, Boeing has donated tens of thousands of masks, gloves and other equipment to hospitals in need.
Boeing’s HorizonX venture capital arm is participating in a $19.3 million Series B funding round for Myriota, an Australian startup that’s building a satellite constellation for the Internet of Things. This marks Boeing’s second investment in the company.
Boeing says it will redo the uncrewed test flight of its Starliner space taxi to the International Space Station, after months of reviewing what went wrong during a flight that fell short of the mark. NASA said it supported Boeing’s decision.