Boeing’s Starliner Program Reaches Staggering $1.1 Billion in Losses

[mystikyria]

https://gizmodo.com/boeing-starliner-program-has-1-billion-in-losses-1850682078

On Wednesday, the company announced further losses to the beleaguered program, as revealed in its second quarter 2023 financial earnings statement. The company has taken an additional $257 million hit, adding to the existing $883 million in charges against earnings attributed to previous problems dating back to December 2019.
Consequently, Boeing’s total losses now amount to a staggering $1.14 billion for the Starliner program. The impact of these setbacks is evident in the company’s Defense, Space, and Security division, which reported a significant loss of $527 million during the second quarter, with the Starliner project accounting for a substantial portion of this downturn, according to Ars Technica.

And

In its latest financial earnings statement, Boeing said the Starliner program “recorded a $257 million loss primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay.” The company initially aimed for a Crew Flight Test (CFT) launch on July 1, with NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore destined for the International Space Station (ISS). However, Boeing announced an indefinite delay to the launch on June 1 due to the discovery of two major safety issues.

 

[halfbakedharry]

@mystikyria It's a shame; Boeing used to be a top-notch engineering company. Then it merged with McDonnell Douglas in the late 90's and paper-pushers took over all levels of management. The scope and scale of Boeing's engineering failures in the past 15 years is staggering and just sad to see.

 

[jakelawww]

@halfbakedharry Yeah reminds me of GE.

 

[angelain]

@jakelawww And it should because many of their execs followed Jack Welch over from GE

 

[bdsmsub]

@angelain Jim McNerney Boeing's CEO between 2005 to 2015 was a Jack Welch protégé and long time GE exec. He lost the race to succeed Welch to Jeff Immelt then went to be CEO of 3M then Boeing. He over saw the 737 Max development, which had lots of cost cutting and deciding not to do a clean sheet plane to compete with the A320. Both led to the recent crashes and groundings costing Boeing billions and many lives affected.

Welch and his successors fucked up America's best businesses.

 

[zaira7laugh]

@bdsmsub and yet somehow these people make out with millions in their pockets. someone make it make sense

 

[elitee]

@zaira7laugh If you mess up as a normal employee, you just lose your job.

When CEOs get fired they seem to leave with millions in payouts to leave. Maybe that's not always the case, but it does seem to happen a lot.

 

[halfbakedharry]

@jakelawww That's a good analogy. About 15 years ago I worked for a different company (~$5b public company) that got taken over by a management team that originated at GE. I watched as over the next 5 years they decimated r&d and bled the company dry. It got taken over by a competitor around 2013.

 

[ianvincent]

@halfbakedharry MBAs are a crime against innovation

 

[crosbyleann]

@ianvincent It’s like they’re trained in Value Extraction.

People work for decades to create something valuable. An MBA comes in and promises to unlock value for shareholders. Sets fire to the company and says look: warmth!

 

[resjudicata]

@crosbyleann It happens to genuine non-profits too.

My employer is a non-profit and in the first 80-90 years of existence literally created and continued to pioneer advancements in the field and shaped the face of what you see today.

They were co-opted by greedy execs and in years where we were posting net losses, executive pay was still over $40MM with no changes in leadership.

 

[carrie999]

@resjudicata I’m thinking a nonprofit health system / hospital owner … ?

 

[celluloid]

@crosbyleann Not to sound too out there, but there's probably someone behind the scenes shorting the crap out of the stock, knowing that a purposefully bad company is sabotaging it from the inside. It's easy money if you know they are trying to make it fail.

 

[eldavid]

@celluloid Whats up baggie? Wen MOASS lmao

 

[celluloid]

@eldavid Im in the green bro. Rent free in your head though.

 

[kiriya]

@jakelawww MBAs are one trick ponies. Cut costs, destroy long term investment and create short term value for shareholders at the expense of long term value. Could be talking about anesthesia staffing, or Tim Hortons, or apparently aerospace engineering.