Boeing profits on demand for jets and a NASA contract
The numbers: Good. Boeing said today it earned nearly $1.36 billion in the third quarter, up 18% from a year ago. Revenues rose 2% to $23.78 billion.
The takeaway: Demand for aircraft lifted Boeing. The company delivered 186 jets in the quarter, 9% more than a year earlier. Boeing booked orders for 501 planes, an increase of 151% from a year ago. The company’s backlog grew 14.6%, to 5,500 airplanes.
What’s interesting: Healthy traffic and high fuel prices have combined to drive demand for gas-sipping (rather than guzzling) jets. Orders during the quarter for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which is made of composite materials to save fuel, climbed 35% from a year ago, to 31 planes. In September, Ryanair, the low-cost Irish carrier, agreed to buy 100 Boeing 737 MAX 200 jets with an option to purchase 100 more.
In September, Boeing also became one of two companies selected by NASA to build the next generation of shuttles to ferry US astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The other, Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, can build a vehicle for about 40% less than Boeing.
A couple of clouds in the otherwise sunny report: The high cost of building the Dreamliner narrowed margins at Boeing’s commercial airplane unit by fourth-tenths of a percent. And revenues at Boeing’s defense division fell 2% from a year earlier, to $7.9 billion.
