Boeing: Costs for 737 Max jump, 3Q profit falls
U.S. airlines not expected to use Max jets until 2020
DALLAS — Boeing signaled Wednesday that it is close to completing its fix to the 737 Max and still expects it to be approved to fly before the end of the year.
The troubled plane has been a drag on the company each day it remains grounded after two fatal crashes. Boeing reported that third-quarter earnings fell 51% to $1.17 billion. It added another $900 million in costs for the Max and deliveries of new planes tumbled from a year ago.
Executives say the company has been giving regulators critical final documents that describe software changes and a program for training pilots to fly the plane, which has been grounded since March.
However, U.S. airlines still don’t expect to use their Max jets until early next year, and Boeing acknowledges that other countries might take longer than the U.S. to let the plane fly again.
Chicago-based Boeing eased concern that it might temporarily shut down the Max assembly line near Seattle if the plane remains grounded. The company said it will raise 737 production from 42 a month to 57 a month by late next year.
The company’s timetable for bringing back the Max after two crashes killed 346 people has repeatedly proved too optimistic. A few weeks ago, CEO Dennis Muilenburg was predicting that the plane would be flying by about October.
Besides the crisis surrounding the 737 Max, which suffered its first crash a year ago this month, Boeing reported setbacks with two larger planes.
Boeing cited uncertainty around global trade in saying it will cut monthly production of the larger 787 jet from 14 to 12 a month for about two years, starting later this year. Last month, Muilenburg warned that trade tension with China — the company’s biggest foreign market — threatened sales of wide-body planes such as the 787.
And Boeing said it now aims to begin delivering the newest version of its big 777 airliner in early 2021. Problems with engines made by General Electric have delayed test flights for the 777X.
Boeing has completed work on software changes to a flight control system called MCAS, which activated mistakenly and pushed down the noses of the planes that crashed in Indonesia last October and in Ethiopia in March. It is still working on a separate issue involving flight computers.