The American aircraft manufacturer Boeing, weighed down by production problems and a major strike – extended at the end of last week and which has lasted since mid-September – will raise 21 billion dollars on the stock market to replenish its coffers, he said. indicated this Tuesday, October 29. Some 112.5 million new shares are being offered by the manufacturer, while the latter recently recorded a loss of more than $6 billion, its worst quarter in four years.
In general, for several years, Boeing’s cash flow has been in dire straits, weighed down by the two crashes of its new medium-haul 737 MAX, in October 2018 and March 2019 (346 deaths in total) and by the Covid-19 pandemic. . But Boeing also recorded losses due to production delays of the new fleet of Air Force One, the American presidential plane, whose contract was signed with the Trump government.
A contract renegotiated after criticism from Trump
It all dates back to 2016: Donald Trump, just elected president, criticized the price, in his eyes, as too high, of the contract initially concluded between Boeing and the American government, at more than $4 billion, for the construction of a new Air Force One plane. After these criticisms and months of negotiations, the company finally reached a new agreement with the Pentagon, announced in December 2017 and signed in February 2018, for a “fixed price contract” of $3.9 billion (3, 7 billion euros) for two Boeing 747-8s.
Problem: the pandemic passed and Boeing found itself in difficulty, with the dismissal of part of the staff and the increase in supplier costs. The company’s former CEO, David Calhoun, estimated in April 2022 that Boeing probably should not have agreed to re-discuss the terms of the contract, explaining that Boeing had lost 1.1 billion that year. dollars (1 billion euros) in this program.
Several billion dollars in additional costs
One year ago in October 2023, theReuters news agency announced $482 million in new losses for the construction of the two planes. In total, more than 2 billion dollars were lost in this program, according to calculations by the American channel CNN. And even more if we take inflation into account: as the specialized American online media points out Simple Flying“since Boeing accepted the fixed price offer in 2018, the value of $3.9 billion has grown to $4.87 billion today, a considerable increase of almost 25%. The change linked to inflation has led to an increase in the cost of goods, transport and labor.”
The two planes were initially scheduled to be delivered in 2024, but are not expected to be delivered until 2026. According to the American news agency AP, Boeing has lost more than $25 billion since the start of 2019.