China News Agency, Houston, July 29. The Boeing Company of the United States announced on the 29th the financial report for the second quarter of this year, and said it plans to take measures such as further production cuts and layoffs to save money.
According to Reuters, affected by the new crown epidemic and the grounding of 737 MAX models, the US aircraft manufacturer achieved revenue of US$11.807 billion in the second quarter, a year-on-year decrease of 25%; a net loss of US$2.395 billion and a net loss of 29.42 in the same period last year. Billion US dollars, the loss narrowed by 18.6%. As of the end of June this year, Boeing’s debt reached US$61.4 billion.
Boeing's second-quarter performance was worse than expected. The company's CEO Calhoun said on a conference call on the 29th, "We are experiencing challenges that we have never experienced in our lives." Calhoun expects the impact of the new coronavirus pandemic on the company to continue until the end of this year.
According to the "Wall Street Journal" report, Boeing delivered 20 commercial aircraft in the second quarter, of which 4 were 737 series aircraft. In the same period last year, the delivery volume was 90, including 24 737 series aircraft.
Calhoun said that due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, during the second quarter, the number of positive cases of new crown among Boeing factory workers increased, leading to the temporary closure of many factories and "production speed was much slower than expected."
In addition, the company's chief financial officer Smith said that the market for new aircraft is shrinking, and Boeing will further reduce aircraft production. Specific measures include delaying the time to market of the 777X aircraft to 2022 and considering the integration of part of the aircraft assembly business of the three major factories.
Boeing also said that within this year, the company has laid off 19,000 employees and will further layoffs. Boeing previously announced plans to lay off about 160,000 employees, accounting for about 10% of the company's total employment.
It is worth mentioning that the "Wall Street Journal" believes that Boeing's plan to reduce the scale of its business will make the aircraft manufacturing giant increasingly dependent on the defense business. Boeing’s defense business sales in the second quarter were flat compared with the same period last year and were four times higher than the commercial aircraft business.
In addition, the Boeing 737 MAX has been banned from flying for 16 months after two crashes. On June 29, Boeing launched a certification test flight for the aircraft under the supervision of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in order to obtain a go-around permit. Boeing expects that this type of passenger aircraft will go around in the fourth quarter of this year. (Finish)