MAX erstatning til operatørene kan doble - Curt Lewis

Analyst: Boeing's compensation to airlines for 737 Max delays may double


More than 200 Boeing 737 Max jetliners are grounded and parked all around Grant County International Airport at Moses Lake, Washington. Airline deliveries have been suspended since March, 2019, after a global grounding of the jet.

Delays hampering efforts to get the 737 Max jet recertified and returned to service may double Boeing's total compensation to airlines for late deliveries, an aerospace analyst predicts.

"Because the Max crisis will have a ripple effect on deliveries, potentially impacting all of the 4,543 Maxes in the order backlog, our guess is that total customer compensation could hit $10-14 billion," Cowen and Company analyst Cai von Rumohr said in a report for the firm's clients.

"Because customer compensation will increase with certification delays, we're assuming Boeing takes an additional charge in the fourth quarter, possibly equal to its initial gross reserve of $6 billion," von Rumohr added.

Cowen downgraded Boeing stock Wednesday, cutting its target to $371 per share from $419.

Boeing, which has estimated the Max crisis has cost it about $7 billion so far, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Boeing's payouts are based on the notion that airlines have lost months of profits because their fuel-efficient 737 Max 8 airplanes weren't delivered following two crashes killed 346 people. The jets have been grounded since March.

Reports have pegged Boeing's compensation at between $2.5 million to $3 million per jet, with larger payouts for customers that ordered more Maxes early, von Rumohr explained in a report with Cowen analysts Jeff Mollinari and Dan Flick.

Boeing has reached partial settlements with Southwest and American airlines, and foreign carriers like Norwegian, THY, and Aeromexico, all subject to non-disclosure agreements. Several carriers promised to share payouts with affected pilots.

Hundreds of undelivered Max jets are parked around North America, including Moses Lake, but the Cowen report said Boeing's ability to ramp up deliveries and resume production is uncertain.

That's because it depends not only on Boeing workers' ability to execute and prepare stored jets for delivery, but also on outside factors, including:

• The impact of Federal Aviation Administration plans to check and approve every Max jet delivery as part of stepped up oversight
• Overall airline passenger growth, which has decelerated
• Recertification of the 737 Max by China, whose airlines have 25 percent of the backlog of Max orders
• Passengers' willingness to fly the Max in the aftermath of the crisis

Von Rumohr said his team was "relatively sanguine" that initial passenger resistance to flying the Max will be overcome with time after regulators have approved it to fly again.

"But we're less certain that air traffic growth can match/exceed the 4 percent growth likely required to sustain demand," he added.

The analyst also expressed concern Boeing may not be able to hit the 57 aircraft a month production rate at its Renton factory.

Boeing cut its monthly build rate from 52 to 40 a month after the second Max crash and last month announced a temporary production halt starting in mid-January, without a firm restart date.