Boeing (BA) stock sank as much as 3% Tuesday as the company said it handed over just 14 commercial planes in October, marking a sharp decline from the 34 aircraft it delivered during the same month last year as a seven-week strike by its biggest union crippled much of its production.
The drop in deliveries underscores production setbacks during the strike, which ended last week but cost Boeing billions and stalled its turnaround efforts.
The plane maker recently raised more than $21 billion to repair its debt-heavy balance sheet and announced a 10% workforce reduction following production and safety challenges that began in early January when a door plug blew out from an Alaska Airlines (ALK) Boeing jet.
Boeing said it booked 63 gross orders in October and had zero cancellations. The company’s official backlog went from 5,410 as of Sept. 30 to 5,462 as of Oct. 31.
The plane maker noted that during the strike, which impacted workers mostly in Washington and Oregon, production and delivery activities continued at the company’s location in South Carolina.
“All deliveries during the strike were handled by employees certified to perform this work,” said Boeing.
The strike, which began on Sept. 13, was estimated to have cost Boeing, its workers, and suppliers nearly $10 billion in lost wages, earnings, and supplier losses, according to an Anderson Economic Group report in late October.
Earlier this month, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) voted in favor of Boeing’s revised contract offer, and employees were told to go back to work by Tuesday, Nov. 12, at the latest.
Wall Street has been keeping a close eye on Boeing’s production ramp-up heading into the end of the year, a process that is expected to take time amid the company’s ongoing recovery plan.
It will be several weeks before factories can fully restart airplane production, as there are multiple steps involved in the process, said the manufacturer on Tuesday.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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