A grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport.
Eric Thayer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Boeing on Wednesday is ready to report fourth-quarter results and answer to investors desperate to hear how a midair blowout on certainly one of the plane maker’s recent 737 Max 9s could reverberate through the aviation industry within the months, if not years, ahead.
The effect of that accident and subsequent fallout won’t be felt in Wednesday’s earnings results but will likely be mentioned in Boeing’s outlook. Here’s how analysts polled by LSEG, formerly generally known as Refinitiv, expect Boeing to have performed within the last three months of 2023:
- Adjusted loss per share: 78 cents
- Revenue: $21.1 billion
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, who took the helm of the aircraft giant 4 years ago within the wake of two deadly crashes of the Max, is again under pressure to wash up the corporate’s popularity with airline customers, regulators and the general public, after the Jan. 5 accident through which a panel blew out on Alaska Flight 1282 because the plane climbed out of Portland, Oregon, leaving a gaping hole within the side of the plane.
Federal investigators are examining whether the door plug was improperly installed before the Max 9 plane was handed off to Alaska Airlines late last yr.
The accident was essentially the most serious in a series of apparent production flaws which have slowed down deliveries of latest planes, and angered a number of the company’s biggest airline customers in the method, while major rival Airbus continues to surpass Boeing in handing over recent aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration last week cleared the Max 9 to fly again but said it might halt Boeing’s planned ramp up in production, which the manufacturer had aimed to rise up to about 50 planes a month in 2025 or 2026.
The Boeing 737 Max is the corporate’s best-selling plane. A delay to production increases could hamper Boeing’s financial targets and affect suppliers which might be preparing for higher output, in addition to customers counting on recent planes to cater to post-Covid travel demand.
Calhoun has visited company and supplier production lines in addition to lawmakers on Capitol Hill within the weeks because the incident, vowing transparency and to repair any shortfalls in its manufacturing. The company had the primary of several production stand-downs last week to talk to staff manufacturing problems and other potential improvements to Boeing’s processes.
