WASHINGTON — Boeing took more than a half-billion dollars in charges on its CST-100 Starliner program in 2024, bringing its cumulative losses on the commercial crew vehicle to just over $2 billion.
In the company’s 10-K annual filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Feb. 3, Boeing said it took $523 million in charges on Starliner in 2024. The company blamed the losses on “schedule delays and higher testing and certification costs as well as higher costs for post certification missions.”
The company had reported a $125 million charge in the second quarter and a $250 million charge in the third quarter. The company warned Jan. 23 it would take an additional loss in the fourth quarter but did not disclose a figure when it released its financial results five days later. The annual loss implies a $148 million loss in the fourth quarter.
The $523 million in charges is the most Boeing has recorded in a single year on Starliner, exceeding $489 million it reported in 2019. The company’s cumulative charges on Starliner are now just over $2 billion. “Risk remains that we may record additional losses in future periods,” the company stated in the 10-K filing.
Boeing executives did not address Starliner in a Jan. 28 earnings call. Neither the company nor NASA have publicly discussed when Starliner might fly again, and whether it would be a crewed or uncrewed test flight versus an operational mission.
At a Jan. 30 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, committee members said they had been brief by NASA about the investigation into the problems Starliner experienced during the Crew Flight Test mission. While NASA reported “significant progress” on some issues, the thruster problems that eventually led NASA to bring the spacecraft back uncrewed remain unresolved.
“The details shared by NASA gave us confidence that they are focusing on the right core issues and the related path to safely flying Starliner,” Paul Hill, a member of the panel, said at the briefing, but offered no details on when Starliner might fly again.
