Boeing posts Q3 loss as problems dog airliner, space capsule

Boeing Co. lost $109 million in the third quarter as it struggled to fix problems with its 787 Dreamliner, a large airliner designed for long routes, and a space capsule that would ferry astronauts to the international space station.

Those setbacks overshadowed rising orders and deliveries as airlines and Boeing recover gingerly from the pandemic, which devastated air travel and demand for new planes.

On Wednesday, Chicago-based Boeing offered a hopeful outlook for aircraft sales, saying that the rollout of vaccines against COVID-19 and easing of global travel restrictions will help the company sell more planes.

More immediately, however, Boeing faces more uncertainty around major programs.

The company has large numbers of parked 787s and 737 Max jets. It hasn't delivered any 787s in several months because of a series of production flaws including substandard titanium parts.

CEO David Calhoun said he couldn't say when 787 deliveries will resume. “I can't give you certainty until I'm certain,” he told analysts during a conference call. “We're well past halfway.”

Calhoun said the company will correct problems on the 787 the same way that it brought back the Max after two deadly crashes and a worldwide grounding — by working with regulators to win approval for corrections to the plane. In the case of the Max, that process took 18 months.

As long as those deliveries are stopped, Boeing is losing a key source of cash.

Boeing has scaled back production of the 787, which caused the company to take a $183 million charge in the third quarter. It expects eventually to absorb $1 billion in “abnormal costs” on the plane.

Boeing also took a $185 million charge in the third quarter for its troubled Starliner space capsule. A unmanned test flight in 2019 failed to achieve the...