Stalled Jet Orders Total 500 at Boeing

Boeing Co. said Tuesday that it had rescheduled deliveries of 500 jetliners--more than a year’s worth of production--since the Sept. 11 attacks sent many of its airline customers into a tailspin.

Boeing’s Seattle-based commercial jet unit, which has fired 30,000 workers and cut production in half over the last 12 months, has pushed back deliveries of about 40% of its backlog of 1,232 aircraft.

“We negotiated over 500 airplanes on their delivery timing [after Sept. 11, 2001] and moved them out to the right because the U.S. airlines couldn’t take them,” Boeing commercial jet Chief Executive Alan Mulally told employees this week.

The company shipped 527 jetliners in 2001 but plans to deliver just 380 this year and as few as 275 in 2003 as many airlines fight for their survival in the wake of a devastating travel slump.

Mulally noted that 75% of Boeing’s 2003 deliveries are slated for carriers outside the United States, up from about 60% in 2001.

Mulally cited those international deliveries to dispute a popular theory that the company wants a strike by its 26,000-member machinists union, which could walk out over a contract dispute as soon as Saturday.

The International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers--and some Wall Street analysts--have asserted that Boeing may benefit from a strike by saving millions in salaries at a time when many airlines can wait for new planes.

Boeing officials have warned that a strike could push some customers to go with rival Airbus, which could overtake Boeing as the world’s largest commercial jet maker for the first time in 2003.

Mulally cautioned the union’s members that a strike would only make things worse for employees and could cause the company to weaken its current three-year contract offer.

“It is not going to get any better, and you know [it] is going to be substantially worse. If we weaken Boeing by letting down the customers, there is not [going to be] money around, and we are going to do whatever we do,” Mulally said.

IAM members will vote Thursday and Friday on an offer including an 8% signing bonus plus wage increases of 2% and 2.5% in years two and three, as well as a 20% increase in pension benefits.

Union leaders have urged members to reject the contract, demanding bigger pension increases and citing a lack of job security and increased employee health-care costs in Boeing’s offer.