Boeing’s program accounting reduce future profits

Subscription required

By Bjorn Fehrm

February 29, 2024, © Leeham News: Boeing published the results for 2023 on the 1st of February. It reported a loss of $2.2bn, compared with a loss of $5.0bn for 2022.

Experienced industry analysts know these results do not reflect the company’s state, neither for 2023 nor for 2022. The reason is Boeing uses so-called program accounting for the production costs of its Commercial Aircraft programs. Based on Boeing data, the loss for 2023 would have been at least $3bn higher using classical accounting methods.

The program accounting idea is to average the high initial cost per produced unit of a new aircraft program with the lower production costs of units later in the program. Thus it smooths the reported profits for a new aircraft program.

It has recently been used to “smooth” reported results of troubled aircraft programs, like the 737 MAX. The drawback is that once the troubles are gone, the negative effects on the company’s future profits are not. We will use the 737 MAX troubles to show the effect of this variant of program accounting.

Picture of a 737 MAX production experiencing problems. Source; Boeing and Leeham Co.

Summary:
  • Boeing increased the 737 Max deferred production cost pushed to future payment by 730% between the end of 2018 and the end of 2023.
  • The result of this way of using program accounting to reduce what is shown today is that future profits of the 737 MAX program will be reduced by almost a billion dollars per year during the next 10 years.

Read more

Boeing’s safety improvement since the 2018-19 MAX crisis needs more work

Editor’s Note: This story was written before the release yesterday of an independent Expert Panel appointed by Congressional mandate to review Boeing’s safety culture. The report may be downloaded here: Boeing Safety Study by FAA Panel 2-26-24

By Scott Hamilton

The interior of the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX at Row 26, where the emergency exit door plug separated from the airplane at 16,000 ft.

Feb. 27, 2024, © Leeham News: The safety culture at Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) came under fire again following the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident in which an emergency exit door plug separated from the plane on climb out from the Portland (OR) airport.

The plane, a 10-week-old 737-9 MAX, fully depressurized at about 16,000 ft. Nobody died and injuries were slight. Damage throughout the cabin and into the cockpit occurred when the door plug, at row 26, blew out. Pilots landed the plane safely at Portland 14 minutes after the decompression.

Within days, quality “escapes” were determined to have occurred at Spirit AeroSystems, which built the fuselage and door plug, and at Boeing during final assembly. Since Boeing had the fuselage last and its employees completed the final assembly, Boeing’s ultimately responsible for the quality escapes.

Boeing Co. CEO David Calhoun was quick to accept responsibility for the company. Such life-threatening escapes should never happen, he said. Calhoun appointed an independent safety committee headed by a retired Admiral, Kirkland Donald, with a nuclear submarine safety background.

The appointment of a special safety committee is reminiscent of a board-level safety committee appointed in September 2019 by then-chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg in the aftermath of the MAX crisis following the October 2018 and March 2019 fatal accidents of two 737-8 MAXes. These accidents killed 348 people and led to a 21-month grounding of the global MAX fleet from March 13, 2019.

Jon Holden, the president of Boeing’s largest union, the IAM 751, said neither he nor others from the union had any contact from the 2019 committee. Boeing’s engineering and technicians union, SPEEA, declined comment. But a source familiar with the situation said the union didn’t see any changes implemented from the 2019 committee at its level.

Read more

Breaking News: Congressionally-mandate safety study finds flaws at Boeing (Updated with Boeing comment)

Feb. 26, 2024, © Leeham News: A Congressionally-mandated safety review study of Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) dropped this morning. The 50-page report of a committee appointed by the Federal Aviation Administration found serious flaws in Boeing’s safety culture despite years of attempts to improve.

LNA is still absorbing the study, which may be downloaded here: Boeing Safety Study by FAA Panel 2-26-24

The Executive Summary is synopsized below.


Related Articles


Read more

Ultimately, Congress is responsible for mess at FAA, Boeing, Spirit, et al

Editor’s note: Mondays are ordinarily paywall days. Because of the nature of this topic, today’s article is a freewall post.

By Scott Hamilton

Commentary

The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX that was involved in the Jan. 5, 2024, accident. The door plug for this emergency exit blew off the airplane during climb out from the Portland (OR) airport. Nobody died and injuries were minor.

Feb. 26, 2024, © Leeham News: There’s no getting around the culpability of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing, and Spirit AeroSystems in the current 737 MAX mess. Nor was there any doubt about the culpability of the FAA and Boeing in the first MAX crisis in 2018-2019.

But let’s face it: Ultimately, Congress is where the buck stops. Because Congress for decades failed to appropriate the bucks needed for the FAA to do its job without overreliance on Boeing or Spirit.

Shifting oversight responsibilities and diminishing the FAA’s role may well have been the result of effective lobbying by Boeing and others in the aerospace industry. Congress could have rejected changes to laws governing the FAA’s oversight authority in favor of Boeing and other aerospace companies.

So, it’s Congress, once again, that is ultimately culpable.

Let’s not be naïve. There is no way Congress or Members of Congress will step up to assume responsibility for the mess the US commercial aviation industry sees itself in today.

Read more

Rolls Royce tackles Trent engine issues as profits take flight

By Tom Batchelor

February 23, 2024, © Leeham News:  The turnaround at Rolls Royce is well-underway as the company revealed a more than doubling of its annual profit – ahead of expectations – at its full year 2023 results announcement on Thursday.

Just a year after the incoming CEO Tufan Erginbilgic warned that the engine group was a “burning platform”, revenues climbed to £15.4bn ($19.4bn at current rates), up from £12.7bn ($16bn) in 2022, and profits soared by 143% to £1.6bn ($2bn), from £652m ($823m). Analysts had estimated profits closer to £1.3bn ($1.6bn) for 2023.

Rolls Royce key financial indicators for 2023. Click to enlarge. Credit: Rolls Royce

Key financial indicators for Rolls Royce in 2023. Click to enlarge. Credit: Rolls Royce

RR delivered a total of 458 engines last year, including 262 destined for large civil aircraft, alongside orders for around 700 powerplants.

Speaking during a briefing call, former BP executive Erginbilgic called it a “transformation” which had “delivered a record performance in 2023”.

Notably, progress is being made on improvements to the Trent XWB-97 and Trent 1000 engines, designed to address durability issues reported by customers operating widebodies in dry and dusty environments.

“We are creating momentum and a track record of significant delivery,” Erginbilgic said, though “bottlenecks” caused by both labor and parts shortages would continue to be a factor into 2026.

“We expect the supply chain to remain challenging for another 18-24 months,” he said. Read more

Carrots and sticks needed to achieve sustainability goals, says Airbus

Subscription Required

By Tom Batchelor

February 22, 2024, © Leeham News:  The sustainability challenge is redefining the aerospace industry in all sorts of ways.

An Airbus A350-1000 is refuelled with a 35% blend of SAF prior to its participation at the 2024 Singapore Airshow’s flying display. Credit: Airbus

For Airbus, which spent €3.2bn on research and development last year, that comes in the form of clean-sheet designs for hydrogen-powered aircraft that promise to reduce in-flight carbon emissions to zero. The European planemaker’s ambition is to bring to market the world’s first such commercial aircraft by 2035.

But Airbus is also working on a successor to the A320 family, referred to as the “next-generation single-aisle” aircraft. At the company’s full-year briefing on February 15, more details were revealed about the aircraft, including confirmation that it would run entirely on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

“We’re working on technology to develop the next short-to-medium range aircraft before the end of the next decade, which will be capable of flying up to 100% SAF,” Julie Kitcher, Airbus’ chief sustainability officer, told LNA in Toulouse. “It will be much more fuel efficient, but also feature a new wing design and new materials; we’re working on a lifecycle approach to this aircraft.” Read more

Part 2: Reconstituting Boeing’s ODA system

By the Leeham News Team

Analysis

Feb. 21, 2024, © Leeham News: In part one, LNA looked at the Organization Designation Authorization, more commonly known as the ODA, what it is, and why it is so important to industry.

The ODA is an organization that is granted the privilege to operate as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on selected work package types. ODAs are composed of “unit members,” the FAA term for people doing ODA work.

Boeing and many other aerospace companies in the US use ODAs. Airbus uses similar people under a different designation issued by EASA, Europe’s regulator. Boeing’s ODA authority was restricted by the FAA in the aftermath of the 737 MAX crisis that led to the 21-month grounding of the global fleet.

The FAA is reconsidering Boeing’s ODA authority.

There are two types of unit members: Designees and others who do ODA work without formal FAA signature authority.

Credit: Federal Aviation Administration.

An example of how a Type Certification (TC) ODA organization uses these two different talent pools can be seen through the Certification process where detailed analysis done by the group is approved (signed off) by an ODA unit member who is a Designee. The FAA suspended Boeing’s “ticketing authority” for the 737 and 787 following the MAX crisis and quality concerns on the 787 production line. Ticketing authority is one ODA mission.

Read more

Make the fix on Boeing 737-9 door plug fail-safe

By the Leeham News Team

Commentary

Four missing bolts were the reason the emergency exit door plug separated from a Boeing 737-9. The inspections-and-repair edict from the FAA may not be enough for a fail-safe fix. Credit: NTSB.

Feb. 20, 2024, © Leeham News: Four missing bolts on an emergency exit door plug leg to the in-flight decompression of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 5 of this year.

It’s not yet clear why the four locking bolts were not installed in the incident aircraft, a Boeing 737-9.

Information revealed to date by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) discovered that Boeing removed the door plug in an unplanned process when some defects were discovered with some rivets. When Boeing line workers reinstalled the plug, for reasons as yet unknown, the four retaining bolts were not reinstalled. The bolts became separated from the plug during the removal. So far as is known, the four bolts never have been found in the factory. The NTSB’s investigation continues.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the MAX 9s for three weeks while inspection and repair procedures were prepared, approved, and implemented. Inspections were expanded to the MAX 9’s predecessor, the 737-900ER, which had the same door plug. No grounding was required of the -900ER.

Although the processes solved the concerns over all MAX 9s produced to date, the question arises whether the procedures are sufficiently fail-safe going forward.

The inspection of the fleet to verify the correct installation of the lock bolts appears to leave a gap for future production, unplanned plug removals, and reinstallation.

Read more

Airbus’s orders at risk

Subscription Required

By Judson Rollins

Introduction 

Feb. 19, 2023, © Leeham News: After last week’s release of Airbus’s 2023 financial results, we undertake our annual analysis of at-risk deals on the OEM’s books.

Airbus has outstanding orders from airlines where there is a material probability that some won’t translate into deliveries. Most resulted from airlines with financial difficulties, but some were related to contractual disputes. When deliveries are delayed beyond a set period, usually 12 months, the customer can cancel orders if the delays are unexcused. Boeing flags such orders as subject to an ASC 606 accounting rule adjustment.

Unlike Boeing, Airbus isn’t subject to the ASC 606 accounting standard, so it only discloses the nominal value of its total adjusted order book in its annual report – but not at-risk orders by program.

LNA analyzed Airbus’s order books in July 2020, November 2020, August 2021, February 2022, August 2022, and December 2022 to identify at-risk orders and develop an apples-to-apples comparison. The above links explain our methodology.

Summary
  • Airbus is more prone to country- and carrier-specific risks than geopolitical.
  • Order risk threatens to push Airbus’s market share even higher.
  • Airbus single-aisle order risk is mainly driven by low-cost carrier exposure.
  • Widebody order risk is a mix of long-deferred orders and regional problems.

Read more

Ryanair, Southwest, United take biggest hit from FAA cap on 737 MAX production

By Scott Hamilton

Feb. 16, 2024, © Leeham News: When the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) put a freeze on Boeing 737 production rates at the currently approved 38/mo level, LNA revealed that hundreds of orders will face delivery delays. Boeing faces even greater delays than the 38/mo production level suggests, however.

As LNA reported, and confirmed by several aerospace analysts, Boeing’s true production rate for the 737 was 31 per month and even lower—as little as around 20 per month in some periods. The balance of deliveries came from its large inventory of 737 MAXes built during the first nine months of the 21-month grounding of the aircraft.

With Boeing’s full year 2023 delivery data now available, LNA looked at 2024 deliveries that were planned before the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX emergency door plug blew off Flight 1282 on climb out from Portland (OR).

The incident was characterized as an accident due to the nature of the event and damage to the airplane. Nobody died and there were only minor injuries. The decompression at about 16,000 ft. damaged the door surround at row 26 on the left side. The door plug separated from the airplane and was found in a wooded area a few days later. There was damage throughout the 737’s cabin and the cockpit door was ripped off its mountings.

The pilots landed the airplane a few minutes later in Portland.

Read more