BOEING CEO Kelly Ortberg laid out a turnaround plan on Wednesday (Oct 23), calling for a “fundamental culture change” at the struggling planemaker as its quarterly losses surged to US$6 billion due to a crippling strike.
The company has now racked up losses of nearly US$8 billion for the current year, as a halt in production of its 737 MAX, 777 and 767 planes following the strike and an ailing defence and space division hammer its business.
Boeing shares slipped 1 per cent in premarket trading.
In a letter, Ortberg stressed the need for improving performance in its defence business and its 737 MAX and 777 programmes while broadly stabilising Boeing, which is “at a crossroads” after lapses in its performance disappointed customers and eroded trust.
“This is a big ship that will take some time to turn, but when it does, it has the capacity to be great again,” Ortberg told the planemaker’s employees in a message containing prepared remarks for his first earnings call as CEO.
Ortberg’s call to arms follows sweeping plans for significant downsizing announced earlier this month as a strike by about 33,000 workers that has dragged on for more than a month hits production of its best-selling 737 MAX jet as well as 767 and 777 widebodies.
The former Rockwell Collins executive, who took the helm of the US planemaker in August, said he was hopeful that a new contract proposal being voted on Wednesday by more of the striking workers would be approved, though analysts say ratification is not certain.
It is a crucial day for the planemaker, which was already struggling with the fallout from a regulator-imposed cap on production of MAX aircraft following a harrowing mid-air door panel blowout.
Ortberg said in his remarks that culture change was discussed at a recent meeting with top company executives.
“We need to prevent the festering of issues and work better together to identify, fix and understand root cause(s),” Ortberg said. “I’ve already introduced a much more detailed business cadence to drive this across the organisation and this process of change is underway.”
But even if the strike ends, restarting production of 737 MAX as well as 767 and 777 widebodies will be a fresh challenge given the supply chain is still struggling in some pockets.
Boeing will also have to convince suppliers who have announced furloughs and put off investments over the last few weeks, to now reverse course and support its production plans.
“It’s much harder to turn this on than it is to turn it off,” Ortberg said, referring to its factories and the supply chain.
He noted that Boeing had a “lot of work to do” before developing a new airplane.
“This includes stabilising our business, improving execution on the development programmes, streamlining the portfolio to do what we do well and restoring the balance sheet so that we do have a path to the next commercial aircraft,” Ortberg said.
Ortberg did not address a possible capital raise, which Reuters has reported could be around US$15 billion.
“We view his (Kelly’s) comments as encouraging, as Boeing has historically been averse to recognising that it has issues, let alone actually fixing them,” Vertical Research Partners analyst Robert Stallard said.
Boeing on Wednesday reported a quarterly cash burn of US$1.96 billion, compared with a cash burn of US$310 million a year earlier.
Quarterly revenue fell 1 per cent to US$17.84 billion.
The company’s commercial aircraft business recorded a US$4 billion loss, while its defence, space and security business lost US$2.38 billion. REUTERS
