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Boeing closes the books on a terrible 2024

  • CNN
  • January 14, 2025
New York

CNN

 — 

Boeing had a decent orderbook in December to cap a very bad year. But its deliveries for the month show it continues to struggle to rebound from the crippling strike earlier in the fall.

The company said it had 142 gross orders in the month, mostly for its troubled 737 Max. It was the best sales month of 2024, a year in which the company saw orders initially grind to a near-halt following the incident in which a door plug blew off of a 737 Max flown by Alaska Airlines, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane.

Still, even with the strong sales, December orders were down sharply from the record 371 plane orders it received in the same month of 2023. And it left Boeing with full-year gross orders of 569, down 60% from the 2023 total.

Boeing was hit by a strike by 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists on September 13, and while they voted to end the strike on November 4, production at the unionized plants did not resume until early December. So, it made only 30 deliveries to customers in December, bringing its full-year deliveries to 348 planes, down 34% from the 2023 total.

Getting more planes out the factory doors and into airlines' hands is crucial to Boeing's battered finances, since that is when the company gets most of the money from the sale of a plane. But fourth quarter deliveries overall fell 64% from the final three months of 2023, pointing to another massive loss that will be reported when it releases financial results at the end of the month. Boeing has already warned investors that losses are likely to continue throughout 2025.