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The company has suffered an equipment safety crisis, adding to financial pressure. Boeing delivered a total of 92 aircraft, down 32% from last year. Boeing named aerospace industry veteran Kelly Ortberg as its new president on Wednesday, tasking the former Rockwell Collins executive with turning around the struggling aircraft maker after it posted a $1.4 billion loss in the second quarter. Boeing said Ortberg will take over on August 8. The company also reported a wider quarterly loss as its struggling defense and space business added to financial pressures on the U.S. aircraft maker, which has cut commercial aircraft production to cope with a quality crisis. The military and space division, one of Boeing’s three main businesses, lost billions of dollars in 2023 and 2022, which executives attributed to cost overruns on fixed-price contracts. These contracts have high profit margins but make defense contractors vulnerable to inflationary pressures that have hurt U.S. corporate profits in recent years. The aircraft maker had been actively bidding for fixed-price contracts before the outbreak, but now says it will abandon them to curb business losses that totaled $1.76 billion last year. Ahead of last week’s Farnborough Airshow, the division’s boss said it had faced “significant challenges” in the current quarter. Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said in May that the company would be spending rather than generating cash by 2024 as it delivers fewer jets than last year. The company was plunged into crisis after part of a 737 MAX 9 jet exploded in mid-air in January, leading to a production slowdown of its best-selling aircraft, a management restructuring and intense regulatory scrutiny. US aviation regulators have limited production of 737 MAX aircraft to 38 per month, but Reuters reported that Boeing has been producing the aircraft at lower levels for several weeks. This has led to fewer deliveries, frustrating customers. In the second quarter, Boeing delivered a total of 92 aircraft, down 32% from last year. Net losses totaled $1.44 billion in the second quarter, compared with a net loss of $149 million in the same period last year.
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