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      Boeing Seeks to Line Up Billions in Financing as Strike Goes On

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      The aerospace giant said it could raise as much as $25 billion in debt or equity over the next three years, including a $10 billion line of credit.Boeing on Tuesday announced steps to improve its financial position as costs mounted and a strike by its largest union entered its second month.In two regulatory filings, the company said that it could raise as much as $25 billion by selling debt or stock over the next three years and that it had entered into a $10 billion credit agreement with a group of banks, which it has not yet drawn on.“These are two prudent steps to support the company’s access to liquidity,” the company said in a statement. The banks are BofA Securities, Citibank, Goldman Sachs Lending Partners and JPMorgan Chase.The moves come days after Boeing revealed about $5 billion in new costs and announced a restructuring that included plans to cut 17,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its work force.The strike, which began a month ago, is costing the company tens of millions of dollars a day, according to various estimates. Most of the workers who walked out are involved in production of commercial airplanes, bringing much of that work to a virtual halt, though one major airplane program is manufactured at a nonunion factory in South Carolina.Talks between the company and the union representing 33,000 striking employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, broke down last week, with Boeing retracting its latest contract offer and each side blaming the other for intransigence.Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, visited Seattle on Monday to meet with Boeing and the union, the union said in a statement.The strike is very likely costing Boeing about $1.3 billion in capital a month, according to calculations by Sheila Kahyaoglu, an analyst at Jefferies, the investment bank. Given those costs and its need for more debt, raising $10 billion by selling new shares would provide the company “considerable flexibility,” she added.Last week, S&P Global Ratings also said it was considering lowering Boeing’s credit rating, depending on how long the strike lasts, to junk status, a downgrade that would raise Boeing’s borrowing costs. The company’s debt totals nearly $58 billion, up from about $9 billion a decade ago.And the chief executive of one of the world’s largest airlines, Tim Clark of Emirates, said recently that Boeing could be forced to seek bankruptcy protection if it was not able to issue more shares to improve its financial position. “Unless the company is able to raise funds through a rights issue, I see an imminent investment downgrade with Chapter 11 looming on the horizon,” Mr. Clark told The Air Current, an aerospace news publication. More

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      SpaceX to Launch Crew-9 Mission for NASA: How to Watch

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      Two astronauts — one American, one Russian — will launch on a flight that is set to bring the Boeing Starliner astronauts home next year.Eight times during the past four years, SpaceX has provided a regular astronaut transportation service for NASA from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Its next flight to the International Space Station, scheduled to launch on Saturday, will not be like the previous eight.There will be two, not four, astronauts aboard. Two other astronauts who were assigned to the mission will remain on Earth. And the mission, named Crew-9, will launch from a different launchpad.The shuffling is a consequence of difficulties with a different spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner, over the summer.“The word that comes to mind for this flight is ‘agility,’” Steve Stich, the manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, said during a prelaunch news conference on Friday.Here’s what you need to know about Saturday’s launch, and why it’s unlike other recent NASA astronaut missions.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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      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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      Ending the Boeing Strike Won’t Be Easy. Here’s Why.

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      The vehemence of workers over wages and other issues caught the company and union leaders off guard.When thousands of Boeing employees rejected a new labor contract, precipitating a strike that began on Friday, they were at odds not just with management but also with the leaders of their union, who backed the proposed deal.Now, any attempt to reach an agreement must take account of the demands of the rank and file of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. What they want — significantly larger pay raises and far more lucrative retirement benefits than their leaders and Boeing agreed to — may be too much for management. But labor experts said the strength of the strike vote — 96 percent in favor — should help the union get a better deal.“Those overwhelming numbers are kind of embarrassing, certainly from a public relations standpoint for the union,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist who studies labor at Washington University in St. Louis. “But they also simultaneously present the union with leverage when it does resume negotiations.”And Boeing is in a difficult spot after a slowdown in commercial jet production — required by regulators after a panel blew out of a passenger jet fuselage in January — led to big financial losses. A long strike at Boeing’s main production base in the Seattle area would add significantly to the losses and possibly tip its credit rating into junk territory, a chilling development for a company with nearly $60 billion in debt.The federal mediation service said on Friday that the union and Boeing management would resume talks in the coming days.“We’re going to go back to the bargaining table, and bargain for what our members deserve,” Jon Holden, the president of District 751, the part of the machinists’ union that represents most of the workers on strike, said in an interview. “We’ll push this company farther than they ever thought they’d go.”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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      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

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      Family of Titan Crew Member Sues OceanGate

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      Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer, died along with four other crew members when OceanGate’s Titan craft imploded on its journey to the Titanic.The family of a French explorer who was aboard the Titan submersible, the vessel that imploded last year during its failed mission to explore the Titanic wreckage, killing all five people aboard, has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the craft’s manufacturer, OceanGate Expeditions.Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French explorer whose deep knowledge of the sunken ship earned him the nickname “Mr. Titanic,” was hired to assist OceanGate, a Washington State-based ocean exploration company, during the Titan’s journey to the Titanic.But the company and its founder, Richard Stockton Rush III, who also died aboard the vessel, misled Mr. Nargeolet about how the submersible was built, according to the lawsuit filed in King County, Wash.“Mr. Rush confessed to a ‘mission specialist’ on one Titanic voyage that he had ‘gotten the carbon fiber used to make the Titan at a big discount from Boeing because it was past its shelf life for use in airplanes,’” according to the lawsuit, which the Houston-based law firms Buzbee Law Firm and Schecter, Shaffer & Harris said was filed on Tuesday.The French deep sea explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet with a miniature version of the sunken ship.Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe lawsuit also accuses Mr. Rush of negligence for a variety of reasons, including falsely advertising a “crackling noise” that was said to be an advanced “safety” feature to alert crew members when to abort a mission. In reality, the lawsuit says that sound “is nothing more than the detection of a possibly imminent failure of the carbon fiber hull.”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 Says It’s Changing Type of Panel That Blew Off Alaska Airlines Jet

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      The company told regulators the changes in design and production of the door plugs would allow its warning systems to detect malfunctions.Boeing officials told regulators on Tuesday that the aircraft maker would make changes to how it designed and produced the type of panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet shortly after takeoff in January.Boeing told regulators that it was redesigning its door plugs — the panels that replace emergency-exit doors in certain design configurations that create more seats — so that its warning systems could detect any malfunctions.The design changes are expected to be “implemented within the year,” said Elizabeth Lund, a senior vice president for quality at Boeing, who testified on Tuesday at an investigative hearing held by the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent government investigative agency.The hearing on Tuesday revealed that Boeing employees removed a door plug from what would later be the Alaska Airlines jet to repair damaged rivets, but without any required internal authorization or paperwork detailing the removal of the panel — a critical structural element. The safety board’s investigation found earlier this year that the plane, a 737 Max 9, left the Boeing factory in Renton, Wash., missing bolts that should have held in place the door plug that blew off midair.The safety board’s chairwoman, Jennifer Homendy, suggested at the hearing that the work culture at Boeing prioritized meeting production schedules over safety standards, and led to an overtaxed work force and lapses in the production process.On Tuesday, Ms. Homendy read quotes from the board’s interviews with mechanics who have worked at the Boeing facility for years. The workers testified to board investigators that they were regularly pressured into working 10 to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, Ms. Homendy said.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