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    Boeing Will Sell $19 Billion in Stock Amid Costly Strike

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    The aerospace company, locked in a standoff with striking workers, is seeking to shore up its balance sheet and avoid a credit rating downgrade.Boeing on Monday began to raise roughly $19 billion by selling stock, an attempt to shore up its finances as a costly and disruptive worker strike weighs on the plane maker’s balance sheet.The sale comes shortly after the aerospace giant reported a $6.1 billion loss in the last quarter and said it was cutting about 17,000 jobs. A weekslong strike by Boeing machinists is costing the company tens of millions of dollars each day, according to analyst estimates, adding to the financial strain created by long-running production and quality issues.The fund-raising aims to stave off a potential credit rating downgrade, which could make it more expensive for the company to borrow money. Boeing has about $58 billion in debt. S&P Global Ratings said this month that it was considering lowering Boeing’s credit rating to “junk” status, depending on how long the strike continues.Boeing’s shares fell about 1 percent Monday morning. The company’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent this year.Last week, Boeing’s largest union, which represents about 33,000 workers, rejected a tentative labor contract, extending a strike that began last month and has halted airplane production at crucial plants in the Seattle area. The proposed agreement did not address a frozen pension plan that workers were seeking to restore.Boeing indicated in regulatory filings this month that it planned to raise as much as $25 billion by selling stock or debt over the next three years, and the company entered into a $10 billion credit agreement with a group of banks. It described the plans as “two prudent steps to support the company’s access to liquidity.”The plane maker hasn’t reported an annual profit since 2018. Before the machinists’ strike started to weigh on the company, two fatal crashes of Boeing’s 737 Max in 2018 and 2019 cost it billions of dollars and severely damaged its reputation. Concerns about the safety of Boeing’s commercial planes resurfaced in January, when a door panel on a 737 Max 9 jet blew open during an Alaska Airlines flight.The stock sale on Monday covers only the company’s near-term needs, “without an extended strike or further production disruptions,” analysts at Wells Fargo said in a research note. More

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      Boeing Union Workers Reject Contract

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      The vote, hours after Boeing reported a $6.1 billion loss, will extend a monthlong strike at factories where the company makes its best-selling commercial plane.Boeing’s largest union rejected a tentative labor contract on Wednesday, a blow to the aerospace manufacturer and the Biden administration, which had intervened in the hopes of ending an economically damaging strike that began more than five weeks ago.The contract, the second that workers have voted down, was defeated by a wide margin, with 64 percent of those voting opposing the deal, according to the union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The union represents about 33,000 workers, but it did not disclose how many voted on Wednesday.“This wasn’t enough for our members,” said Jon Holden, president of District 751 of the union, which represents the vast majority of the workers. “They’ve spoken loudly and we’re going to go back to the table.”The vote is a setback for Boeing’s new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, who is trying to restore Boeing’s reputation and business, which he described in detail earlier on Wednesday. In remarks to workers and investors, Mr. Ortberg said Boeing needed to undergo “fundamental culture change” to stabilize the business and to improve execution.“Our leaders, from me on down, need to be closely integrated with our business and the people who are doing the design and production of our products,” he said. “We need to be on the factory floors, in the back shops and in our engineering labs. We need to know what’s going on, not only with our products, but with our people.”Mr. Ortberg delivered that message alongside the company’s quarterly financial results, which included a loss of more than $6.1 billion. This month, Boeing also announced plans to cut its work force by about 10 percent, which amounts to 17,000 jobs. Boeing also recently disclosed plans to raise as much as $25 billion by selling debt or stock over the next three years as it tries to avoid a damaging downgrade to its credit rating.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘No Smoking’ Sign on Planes Won’t Need Off Switch After FAA Rule Change

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      The Federal Aviation Administration did away with a rule that had required an off switch for the sign even though smoking on U.S. flights ended years ago.The days of airplane cabins hazy with cigarette smoke are long gone, but a reminder of that era is still visible inside commercial jets.Smoking has been banned on commercial flights in the United States for decades, but the Federal Aviation Administration is only just updating an outdated rule to reflect that reality. Starting on Tuesday, the illuminated overhead “No Smoking” sign no longer requires an off switch.That obsolete requirement had become “time-consuming and burdensome” for airlines and airplane manufacturers to comply with, the F.A.A. said in a rule enacting the change. In February, for example, United Airlines was briefly unable to use a handful of new Airbus planes because the “No Smoking” signs on board couldn’t be shut off, causing the airline to delay a few flights. The issue was resolved after the F.A.A. granted United an exemption.Dozens of such exemptions have allowed that requirement to live on while the agency focused on more pressing matters. But the long life of the mandate also reflects how entangled smoking once was with commercial flights, which began in the 1910s.“The rise of aviation literally parallels the rise of the cigarette,” said Alan Blum, the director of the University of Alabama’s Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.Pipes, cigars and chewing tobacco were once more popular than cigarettes, but that began to change in the early 20th century, according to Dr. Blum. During World War I, cigarettes were added to rations for American soldiers fighting abroad.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Plane Crash Near Wright Brothers Memorial Leaves ‘Multiple’ Dead

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      A single-engine plane was trying to land when it crashed into a wooded area near the memorial in North Carolina on Saturday, the National Park Service said.Multiple people were killed after a small plane crashed at an airport in North Carolina on Saturday near the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, the National Park Service said.The single-engine airplane was trying to land at the First Flight Airport when it crashed into a wooded area nearby.The plane then caught fire, the Park Service said. It did not specify how many people died or where the flight originated.The Kill Devil Hills Fire Department responded to the fire and extinguished it, officials said.The First Flight Airport, established in 1928, is a single-runway, public-use airport that commemorates the site where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first powered flight in 1903.The site is managed by the National Park Service.Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.The Wright Brothers National Memorial will be closed on Sunday, the Park Service said. More

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      Safety Board Warns of Rudder Control Defect in Some Boeing Planes

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      The National Transportation Safety Board said it had found a defective part in the system that helps steer the aircraft after investigating an incident at Newark airport.The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday issued a safety alert and recommendations for some Boeing planes, warning that a defect could cause the rudder control system that helps steer the aircraft to jam.The warning applies to some of the company’s 737 Max and 737NG jets. It stems from the agency’s investigation into a United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 that experienced “stuck” rudder pedals while landing at Newark Liberty International Airport in February.The safety board said it had been notified that more than 350 of the defective parts were delivered to Boeing, but it was not immediately clear how many planes with the affected component might be in service. The Federal Aviation Administration said it believed United was the only U.S. operator that had the faulty parts, and United said it had removed the components from its nine affected planes.The safety board urged the F.A.A. to determine whether the faulty parts should be removed from service and, if so, to mandate that U.S. operators replace them. It also recommended informing international aviation regulators to encourage similar actions. The F.A.A. said in a statement that it had “been monitoring this situation closely” and would convene a panel to determine its next steps.The warning adds to a string of safety woes for Boeing, which is already under intense scrutiny from regulators after incidents including a panel that blew off a jet midair this year. An audit conducted by the F.A.A. after that incident found dozens of problems throughout the 737 Max’s manufacturing process.The safety board opened its investigation into the rudder control issue on Feb. 6, after the captain of a 737 Max 8 had to use the nose wheel steering tiller to maintain control of the plane when the rudder pedal became stuck while landing at Newark. A plane’s rudder control is primarily used on takeoff and landing to maintain the direction of the plane’s nose.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jury Awards $116 Million to Family of Man Who Died in Helicopter Crash

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      When an open-door tourist helicopter crashed into the East River, Trevor Cadigan, 26, and four other passengers were unable to escape from cumbersome safety harnesses.The helicopter flight began with celebration. “All right — let’s do it!” the pilot shouted just before liftoff from the heliport in New Jersey.“Party,” said one passenger. “Hooo!” said another.After flybys of the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center and the Brooklyn Bridge, during which passengers leaned out the open door to shoot photos, the flight ended suddenly 14 minutes after takeoff when the red helicopter plunged into the East River. It tipped on its side, and as cold water flooded the cockpit, the passengers realized they could not escape.“How do I cut this?” a passenger said, struggling to free himself from the harness that anchored him to the aircraft, according to the transcript of an onboard video from the flight released by the National Transportation Safety Board.All five passengers died in the March 11, 2018, flight. Only the pilot escaped. The accident was caused by a loose, improvised safety harness that caught on the helicopter’s fuel shut-off lever, mounted on the floor. That activated the lever, killed the engine and caused the crash, the safety board found.The safety harnesses, meant to prevent passengers from falling out the open door of the helicopter, instead locked the passengers in place, exposing them to “great difficulty extricating themselves” quickly in an emergency, the safety board found.Six jurors in State Supreme Court in Manhattan agreed on Thursday, awarding $116 million in compensatory and punitive damages to family members of one of the passengers, Trevor Cadigan, 26.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Boeing Workers Go on Strike: What to Know

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      Thousands of Boeing workers in Washington State and Oregon walked off the job on Friday in the first strike at the plane maker in 16 years.Boeing is facing a strike that threatens to disrupt plane production, after workers overwhelmingly voted to reject a tentative contract their unions had reached with the company.Thousands of workers walked off the job in the Seattle and Portland, Ore., regions on Friday, a move that is likely to stall operations at factories where Boeing manufactures most of its commercial planes. While the deal their unions struck with the company on Sunday included double digit pay raises and improvements to benefits, 95 percent of workers rejected the proposed contract, opting instead to leverage a strike to push for more.Here’s what else to know about the company’s first strike since 2008:How many workers are on strike?Boeing, one of the largest exporters in the United States, employs a total of nearly 150,000 people across the country — almost half of them in Washington State — and more than 170,000 people worldwide. The contract that spurred Friday’s strike covers about a fifth of the company’s employees.A vast majority of the 33,000 workers under the contract are represented by District 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Boeing’s largest union. Most of that union’s members work on commercial airplanes in the Seattle area. Workers in the Portland, Ore., area, who are represented by the union’s smaller District W24, are also on strike.What prompted them to walk off the job?The leaders of the unions representing the workers on strike reached a tentative deal with Boeing on Sunday that would have secured raises of 25 percent over four years, along with improvements to health care and retirement benefits. The company also committed to building its next commercial plane in the Pacific Northwest.But workers’ overwhelming rejection of that tentative contract reflects their willingness to fight for more, in large part to make up for concessions made in past talks, including the loss of pension benefits a decade ago. The unions started the talks by asking for raises of 40 percent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California Man Assaulted Frontier Flight Attendants, Prosecutors Say

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      The violent episode resulted in an emergency landing. The man now faces federal flight interference charges.A California man accused of assaulting crew members and threatening to kill everyone aboard a Frontier Airlines flight was arrested Wednesday on federal charges, prosecutors announced.Charles Angel Salva, 30, of Fremont, Calif., faces federal charges of interference with flight crew members and attendants, prosecutors said on Thursday. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.The disruption happened on Monday evening shortly after Frontier Airlines Flight 3581 had taken off from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif., bound for San Francisco International Airport and resulted in an emergency landing at Ontario International Airport, about 30 miles northeast of Santa Ana.The plane had not yet reached 10,000 feet when flight attendants noticed the that oxygen masks above seats in Row 18 had deployed, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in the criminal complaint.Flight crew members who went to assess the situation found Mr. Salva with his hand in the overhead compartment.A passenger siting in Row 19 told investigators that Mr. Salva had appeared claustrophobic and had seemed to want to get off the flight before he pulled down the oxygen mask from the overhead compartment and got his hand stuck in the process, the affidavit said. The passenger helped Mr. Salva get his hand unstuck.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Starliner Capsule Returns, but Boeing’s Space Business Woes Remain

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      The capsule, which returned without astronauts, and other space programs at Boeing have suffered many delays and cost overruns.Space programs are a small part of Boeing’s business, which is dominated by sales of commercial and military planes and equipment. But the work is a point of pride: Boeing has long been involved in spaceflight, going back to the first mission to take an American to space.But Boeing’s efforts to add to that space heritage are in doubt.The company’s Starliner capsule returned to Earth safely from the International Space Station on Friday night, but without the two astronauts it took up there in June because NASA was concerned about thrusters on the capsule that had malfunctioned before it docked at the station.A decade ago, NASA chose Boeing and an upstart rival, SpaceX, to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. SpaceX has since carried out seven of those missions and will bring home the astronauts Starliner left behind, while Boeing has yet to complete one. And with the station set to retire as soon as 2030, time is running out.“It’s unclear if or when the company will have another opportunity to bring astronauts to space,” Ron Epstein, an aerospace and defense analyst at Bank of America, said in a research note last month. “We would not be surprised if Boeing were to divest the manned spaceflight business.”On Thursday, asked to comment on Starliner’s problems and the future of its space business, Boeing responded with this statement: “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”Boeing’s troubles could be a setback not only for the company but for the U.S. space program more broadly, which wants multiple private companies available to ably support its efforts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More