Dave Calhoun, President of Boeing.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said Wednesday he was “hopeful” that demand for new planes, devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, would begin to pick up in the second half of next year.
Cancellations of Boeing planes are outpacing new orders this year as airlines falter from the impact of the virus and the company’s key 737 Max remains grounded. Boeing recorded a loss of $ 2.4 billion for the second quarter of the year. It also plans to cut production and warned of the potential for more job cuts.
“There is a customer who calls us every day with the desire to want to differ and deal with the difficult environments they are dealing with,” Calhoun said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”.
Boeing said it plans to delay a production increase from 737 to 31 a month until 2022, later than planned for next year. It will also cut production of its 787 wide-body aircraft to six a month from 10. It will produce only two 777 aircraft a month from five at present, the company said.
Calhoun said he expects an uneven recovery from the pandemic for airlines around the world and that healthy emerging carriers may want to gain an advantage over competitors with newer aircraft, boosting demand.
“China and Europe appear to have a little more control over their environments than the United States at the moment,” Calhoun said. “It will happen and I think somewhere, depending on a vaccine and the success and distribution of a vaccine, sometime in the second half of next year, I hope this worm changes.”
Boeing shares fell more than 4% on Wednesday morning.
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