Boeing reports over $1 billion in losses in Q1, largely due to expensive Trump-era Air Force One contract

Boeing has reported Quarter 1 losses for 2022 totalling over $1 billion, which the engineering giant says is largely due to expenses associated with the contract entered into with former president Donald Trump to modify two 747 jumbo jets to serve as Air Force One aircraft.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun admitted this week that Boeing “probably” should not have entered into the deal with the Trump administration at all.

“Air Force One I’m just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn’t have taken,” Calhoun said on a conference call with analysts. “But we are where we are, and we’re going to deliver great airplanes,” Calhoun said, shortly after Boeing reported a loss for the first quarter of 2022. “And we’re going to recognize the costs associated with it.”

Boeing’s financial disclosure for Q1 showed a net loss of $1.2 billion. A whopping $660 million of that is associated with delays and unexpectedly high costs of the Air Force One project. The total loss from Q1 of 2022 along with previous losses related to the Air Force One program now total $1.1 billion.

The contract signed by Boeing in 2018 requires the company, not the United States government, to cover the costs of any delays or price increases on the project. “Risk remains that we may be required to record additional losses in future periods,” Boeing stated in the filing.

Calhoun added, “We took some risks not knowing that Covid would arrive and not knowing that inflation would take hold like it has – and both of those have impacted us fairly severely,” Calhoun said. “But we are where we are, and we’re going to deliver great airplanes.”