Key Takeaways
- Shares of Boeing fell about 8% Monday on another safety concern, this time the detachment of a panel on its 737 Max mid-flight.
- The aircraft maker’s drop isn’t as steep as other recent declines, including a 10% tumble it took in May 2022 after reporting disappointing delivery numbers.
- Boeing shares are still around 30% below their pre-pandemic level.
The mid-flight incident on a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft last week was the latest in a string of incidents for the aircraft maker, which saw its shares fall about 8% Monday as investors reacted to the grounding of the plane.
Over the past half decade, investors have watched as Boeing’s (BA) stock has been on a roller coaster, as production delays and safety concerns have affected investor sentiment.
737 Max Crashes
The 737 Max problems began with two crashes of the aircraft, the first an Indonesian Lion Air crash in October 2018, followed by an Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019, killing 346 people between the two incidents.
The news of the Lion Air crash coupled with concerns over trade tensions between the U.S. and China—Boeing being a large exporter—sent the company’s shares about 6% lower on Oct. 29, 2018. The decline didn’t hold though, as the stock rebounded 4.2% on the next trading day.
The stock continued to rally, reaching an all-time-high closing on March 1, 2019. However, days later, the Ethiopian crash sent the stock lower by 5% on March 11, 2019, and it declined another 6% the following day.
What followed was a 20-month safety review by the Federal Aviation Administration where the aircraft was grounded from passenger use, finally clearing the 737 Max in November 2020.
Boeing Shares Skid During The Pandemic
But the pandemic had a greater impact on the stock, where Boeing shares fell more than 70% between mid-February and mid-March in 2020, as air flights ground to a halt on global travel restrictions. Boeing shares still haven’t recovered, and are about 30% lower than their pre-pandemics levels.
Production Concerns Hurt Stock
Boeing has also struggled with production issues on both its 737 Max and its 787 Dreamliner, with shares falling on poor production numbers. The aircraft maker saw its worst day in the past two years when it fell around 10% on May 9, 2022, following reports that it was behind schedule for its second quarter deliveries.
Not all production issues were related to aircraft production delays. On September 28, 2023, Boeing agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle claims regarding production of its V-22 Osprey aircraft for the U.S. military.
Most recently, Boeing’s shares slid again in October after it announced expanded inspections of the 737 Max, further delaying deliveries.