Deeper job cuts at Boeing as pandemic throttles air travel

Boeing will cut more jobs as it continues to bleed money and its revenue fades during a pandemic that has smothered demand for new airline planes.

The company said Wednesday that it expects to cut its workforce to about 130,000 people by the end of next year, or 30,000 fewer than it began with in 2020. That is a far deeper cut to its workforce than the 19,000 jobs the company said it planned to trim just three months ago.

Boeing Co. talked about the more severe job cuts on the same day it reported a $449 million loss for the third quarter, a swing from the $1.17 billion it earned in the same period last year. The loss was still not as bad as feared.

Revenue tumbled 29% to $14.14 billion.

Boeing has been whipsawed by a drop in revenue after its 737 Max was grounded in March 2019 following two deadly crashes, and then a pandemic that has caused air travel to plunge and left airlines with more planes than they need.

It has been a bruising stretch for one of America’s preeminent manufacturers. Thursday marks the second anniversary of the first Max crash, Lion Air flight 610, which plunged into the Java Sea just off the coast of Indonesia killing all 189 aboard.

The pandemic has intensified the pain.

The company recently lowered its forecast of demand for new planes over the next decade by 11% because of the coronavirus pandemic. Some analysts think even that scaled-back forecast was too rosy.

Boeing, which along with Europe’s Airbus dominates the aircraft-building industry, has seen orders and deliveries of new planes shrivel this year in the face of the pandemic and the grounding of the Max, its marquee aircraft.

Boeing has cut production as deliveries slow and cancellations snowball, leaving it with too many workers.

The Max was Boeing’s best-selling plane, but...