737 Max Crisis: Boeing lost $636m in 2019 FY

America’s renowned aircraft manufacturer, popularly known as Boeing, has reported its first annual loss in more than two decades as it grapples with the fallout of the 737 Max crisis.

The embattled aircraft giant lost $636 million in 2019, the company’s first full-year loss since 1997.

TW gathered that the company also lost $1.01 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Those losses primarily reflect “the impacts of the 737 Max grounding,” the company said.

Boeing, which reported a revenue base of 101.1 billion USD with a production output of 806 commercial aircraft, 96 military aircraft and 2 satellites the previous year (2018), is still wrestling with the reputational and financial issues caused by two crashes involving the 737 Max, which killed 346 people.

“We recognize we have a lot of work to do,” Boeing’s newly-installed CEO David Calhoun said in a statement.

Boeing’s former CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, who allegedly botched the 737 Max crash incidences, was fired in December last year in a bid to regain public confidence in the firm.

Meanwhile, the US’s Federal Aviation Authority has proposed fining Boeing $5.4 million for “knowingly” installing faulty wing parts on nearly 200 planes.

The 737 Max crashes are believed to have been caused by software failures, and the entire fleet has been grounded worldwide since March 2019.