April Horst travels crosscountry often to visit her family and friends on the West Coast. She is not usually a picky traveler but on her last trip, her only request was that the jet not be a 737 MAX.

“Stepping onto the plane felt like walking the plank,” said Horst. “I don’t think I could have done it without the anti-anxiety medication prescribed by my doctor.”

Horst is far from the only traveler who has lost faith in the 737 MAX after a series of high-profile disasters, two of which ended in fatal crashes that killed hundreds. 

The model has become a flashpoint in a longrunning crisis of confidence that Boeing has struggled to contain. Regulators have grounded the 737 MAX multiple times in recent years because of safety concerns. Airlines have had to field widespread requests by travelers to avoid flights on that model. 

Years into the mess, there is no clear end in sight for Boeing. 

The Virginia-based company hasn’t been profitable since 2018, a  reflection of  how its bet on the 737 MAX went sideways. It has gone through three CEOs over the past decade, the most recent of which has vowed to fix a broken culture at the company. The issues have ignited broader safety concerns at the company, led to eye-watering legal costs and prompted intense scrutiny by regulators.

Today, the stock trades at around $155 per share after reaching a height of more than $400 in March 2019. This year alone the stock has shed more than a third of its value. 

The company is expected to lose more than $9 billion this year on revenue of $68 billion. Analysts project a tiny profit in 2025.

Long a key part of the Boeing strategy, the 737 MAX has become one of its biggest liabilities. 

“The 737 platform is done,” said Morningstar analyst Nicholas Owens, who noted it accounts for half of the value of the company.

The strike led more than 35,000 machinists to protest outside of facilities in Seattle and Washington. Along with company pay and benefits, the union also raised concerns about aircraft safety. 

Northcoast Research analyst Chris Olin said the newest CEO, who took the helm in August, inherited a mess that won’t be easy to clean up. 

“That situation is not stabilized,” he said. 

The 737 MAX was grounded again in January of 2024 after a door flew off the hinges mid-flight. The Federal Aviation Administration also grounded the plane in 2019 and 2020 after two fatal crashes on the aircraft  model over the span of just months.

The FAA has pushed for more oversight of the company and continues to increase onsite presence at Boeing’s facility.

The company agreed to plead guilty to fraud related to the crashes in a deal with the Justice Department this year. According to the company’s latest 10K filing, concessions paid to 737 MAX customers totaled nearly $1 billion in the first nine months of the year.

Boeing’s bet was that the 737 Max would return its dominance on the commercial aircraft market. In 2011, it announced the rollout of the 737 MAX and said it would cut costs and maximize efficiency. It was a redesign of the 737 for better fuel efficiency, a quieter engine and lower maintenance costs.

According to estimates by AXON Aviation, the 737 platform is Boeing’s most economical airliner.

The new aircraft was intended to rival the Airbus A320NEO which was announced just months earlier. Airbus surpassed Boeing in orders late in 2010 after it announced a new cost efficient airliner.

Boeing relied on the 737 platform for years, according to Boeing, the plane maker has received more than 5,000 orders, making the 737 MAX the fastest-selling aircraft the company has ever produced. 

Now that success has increasingly come under threat by new Airbus projects. Boeing lagged behind Airbus in orders in 2023, a trend that has carried over into this year. For the month of October, Boeing reported 63 orders for new aircrafts while Airbus received 82.

Production has also been plagued by other factors, in addition to safety fiascos. In 2019, a separate strike stopped production in Boeing factories primarily in Seattle. A year later, the pandemic caused by the coronavirus halted the company’s production. 

“Those two things together completely destroyed the factory,” Owen said. 

That stoppage separated machinists from the assembly line. Owens argues that this time away not only stopped work for the time that they were out but it also stopped machinists from learning from each other.

Boeing’s safety record has had negative implications for the broader airline industry. Due to Boeing’s massive backlog, airlines are hiring less pilots. 

“Major airlines base their hiring on the number of aircraft they have and predict to have based on aircraft attrition and new aircraft purchases,” said Richard Brauhn, a professor of Aviation Maintenance, Avionics at Indian Hills Community College.

“Most of our graduates now go to business aviation or general aviation jobs because of the ripple effect of the MAX safety record on the airline employment landscape,” Brauhn added.

The company produced 737 Max airliners at an average rate of 31 per month, seven airliners less than their goal of 38. It has proven unprofitable for investors as current earnings per share are -12.94.

Still, Owens believes the 737 MAX has a future for the company.

Although the backlog is Boeing’s biggest setback, Owens also refers to it as proof of the aircraft maker’s future growth. While many issues have impacted production, airlines still continue to order meaning Boeing continues to have a chance to make things right.

“They have already sold thousands of them,” he said. “They have to build them.”

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