How bad was 2024 for Boeing financially?

On Thursday the company announced fourth quarter details showing it lost last year about $11.8 billion, the second heaviest loss in Boeing history.

The data released after the stock market closed Thursday also shows a fourth quarter cash outflow of $3.5 billion, which means Boeing burned through $13.7 billion in cash in 2024.

Boeing attributed the financial meltdown, which included $2.8 billion in fourth quarter write-offs, to the lost revenue during the strike by Machinists in the fall and the higher labor costs in the new contract Machinists won, as well as further delays on major defense programs.

Still, in a statement released with the worrying financial details, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took charge in August, spoke of the new Machinists contract as a positive for the future.

“Although we face near-term challenges, we took important steps to stabilize our business during the quarter including reaching an agreement with our IAM-represented teammates,” he said, referring to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “Our team remains focused on the hard work ahead to build a new future for Boeing.”

Big charges on 777X, 767 and military programs

Boeing said it will report a loss in the fourth quarter of $5.46 per share, which analyst Scott Mikus of Melius Research calculated as equating to an overall quarterly loss of about $3.8 billion. That’s significantly worse than the consensus projections among Wall Street analysts of just less than $1 billion.

The overall 2024 loss is just less than the largest ever in 2020, when a combination of the 737 MAX grounding and the global pandemic paralyzing aviation caused an $11.9 billion loss.

Boeing’s chaotic year began with 737 MAX deliveries halted after a large fuselage panel on an Alaska Airlines flight blew out in midair. That drew sharp attention from the Federal Aviation Administration, which capped MAX production until Boeing gets control of its safety and quality management.

Production was only beginning to ramp up again when the Machinists walked off the job in September. For the 53 days of the strike, extending well into the fourth quarter, Boeing delivered only a few commercial airplanes.

In October, Boeing delivered just commercial 14 jets. Even in Boeing’s North Charleston, S.C., plant, where the workforce was not on strike, production of the 787 Dreamliner was slowed by shortages of parts from a supply chain weakened since the pandemic.

Boeing said its Commercial Airplanes unit lost $2.1 billion in the fourth quarter. That outcome reflects the reduced revenue due to lower jet deliveries during the Machinists strike and higher labor costs in the final agreement, Boeing said.

It took a $900 million write-off on the 777X program for the higher labor costs that “will be incurred over the next several years,” and an additional $200 million write-off on the 767.

Boeing’s Defense and Space unit lost $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter. That reflected a total of $1.7 billion in write-offs on a series of troubled fixed-cost programs for the Pentagon.

The largest defense write-off was $800 million on the KC-46 air-to-air refueling tanker for the Air Force. That aircraft is a military derivative of the 767 built in Everett. Boeing again attributed the charge to the Machinists strike and final contract creating “higher estimated manufacturing costs.”

This brings total Boeing KC-46 tanker write-offs over the past decade to $9 billion.

Boeing also took a $500 million charge on its T-7 jet trainer and a further $400 million on three more troubled programs: the commercial crew space vehicle; the MQ-25 aircraft carrier-based aerial refueling drone for the Navy; and the Air Force One program, now likely delayed until after President Donald Trump’s term is over.

All of those defense-side programs are far behind schedule and all are money-losing. During 2024, Boeing’s defense and space unit wrote off a total of $5 billion.

In an interview, Ron Epstein, an analyst with Bank of America, said he’s surprised at the constant stream of defense-side cost overruns.

“When does this defense stuff end?” Epstein asked. “How many times do you have to hear, we’ve accounted for it all?”

Only Boeing’s aftermarket services division made money in the fourth quarter.

This latest financial plunge comes after Boeing wrote off $5 billion just three months ago as it reported a $6.2 billion loss for the third quarter, very little of which was due to the Machinists strike.

Thanks to$21 billion raised through a share sale in October, at least Boeing has lots of capital to help get through the current crisis.

Its cash on hand, which was just $10.5 billion at the end of September, at the end of 2024 stood at $26.3 billion, Boeing said.

Though Boeing shares had gained $3.70 during trading Thursday, after the news of the quarterly financial damage broke, shares lost most of that gain in after-hours trading. Shares traded down $2.86, or 1.6%, at midday on Friday.

Boeing’s release Thursday was a pre-announcement of the bad news. The company will provide more details in its quarterly report Tuesday.

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