Kelly Ortberg
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Boeing Company

April 24, 2025

Well, thanks, Steve, and thanks, everybody for joining the meeting today. It's an honor to be here for my first Boeing Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Over the course of our more than 100-year history, a number of consequential moments have defined our company. And we're in a pivotal moment today that will set the course for our future success in returning the Boeing Company to the iconic American manufacturer it needs to be.

While there's more work ahead, I'm glad to be able to tell you that change at Boeing has begun. We're starting to see progress on fundamental changes needed to stabilize our business, improve our culture and restore the trust of our stakeholders and all who count on us.

Yesterday, we reported our first quarter results, which showed we are moving in the right direction as we execute our plan to improve operational performance as part of our ongoing focus on safety and quality. In addition, we continue to have discussions with the administration on tariffs, and it's clear that they understand the importance of the aerospace industry to the U.S. economy and the role that Boeing plays as a top U.S. exporter.

Today, I'll update you on four action areas critical to Boeing's recovery, including the steps we’re taking to strengthen our commitment to safety-focused, quality-driven culture and the ongoing work we're doing, which is fundamental to our leadership in aerospace.

The first area is stabilizing the business. Under the close oversight of the Department of Transportation and the FAA, we are implementing our Safety and Quality Plan and directly addressing the findings from the FAA special audit. These are focused on four major work streams, including reducing defects, enhancing employee training, simplifying our processes and procedures and elevating our safety and quality culture.

Many of these improvements came directly from our employees who generated over 26,000 ideas, and we continue to evaluate them and implement them.

In parallel, we're further maturing our Safety Management System company-wide. And for example, after our resolution of the IAM strike, we methodically restarted our factories within the framework of our SMS. This included ensuring all manufacturing employees were current on their training and certifications prior to returning to work on the factory floor. We took the necessary time to rebalance the product line, so that we started -- so when we started up, we did so with a healthy production system.

SMS is also helping guide critical decisions to identify and address any potential issues across our airplane programs. This work will continue as we further progress towards a rate of 38 airplanes per month on the 737 and seven per month on the 787, both expected to happen this year.

The impact of our efforts is already evident to our airline customers and we're getting great feedback about the improved quality of their aircraft. The planned acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems was approved by their share owners earlier this year and expected to close this summer. This is an important element to stabilizing our business and will help improve overall performance and quality.

And finally, the $24 billion capital raised last fall was critical to building the foundation for our recovery and long-term health. The size of this raise reflected the market's confidence in our turnaround, in our future, and our commitment to managing our balance sheet, to maintaining our investment-grade credit rating, as well as giving us the room to restart and increase production responsibly.

The second area is improving our development program execution. We are safely advancing the 737-7, the 737-10 and the 777X through certification, and introducing them into the global  fleet is a key priority for us and our customers.

Around the world, the U.S. armed forces and allies depend on our defense products to secure and protect freedom and provide humanitarian aid in time of crisis. We continue to see stable and solid demand across the defense and space portfolio as governments prioritize security, defense, technology and global cooperation given evolving threats.

We've also worked to improve performance and reduce risk on our fixed-price development programs. We’re working closely with our customers to deliver safe, high-performance products. This “Active Management” framework includes an updated acquisition approach with the U.S. Air Force to accelerate the timeline for initial operating capability on the T-7A Red Hawk program and ongoing conversations with our customers to support schedules, requirements and performance on the VC-25B program.

The third area is culture. It is perhaps the most important change we need to make as a company. Restoring the values that were foundational to the Boeing history and setting appropriate expectations for behaviors is moving us forward.

This starts with our leadership -- including me -- spending more time listening and learning from our employees, working to restore trust and holding leadership accountable. I moved to Seattle because I believe our leadership needs to get closer to the people designing and building our products. For our teammates, we need to restore trust and break down the barriers that prevent us from collaborating across the company.

Last week, I shared our new values and behaviors with the entire team. These were created by employees from all parts of our company to ensure it resonates with our workforce. While these values are new, they reflect our heritage as an aerospace pioneer and innovators, capturing our potential that what we accomplished, what we can accomplish, by working together.

Going forward, performance management, people decisions and leadership development will all be based on our values and behaviors. We will hold each other accountable as we build a culture and a company we're proud of.

The last area is building our future. In 2024, Boeing invested $6 billion in research and development and capital expenditures, including expansions for advanced combat aircraft manufacturing, maintenance facilities and parts, commercial production sites, including the 787 factory in South Carolina and a fourth 737 MAX production line in Everett, Washington. We continue to invest in research with global partners that will support our future products.

Our backlog of more than half a trillion dollars -- more than 5,000 airplanes for our commercial customers -- demonstrates the value of our portfolio. The 737 and the 787 are sold out through the end of the decade, and our most recent forecast projects demand of nearly 44,000 new airplanes by 2043.

We're also building our future in defense. Our team had a landmark win last month when the U.S. Air Force selected Boeing to design, produce and deliver the most advanced fighter jet the world has ever seen. The design of the F-47 is a shining example of Boeing innovation at its best.

Our services business continues to provide stability for the company while delivering for commercial and defense operators through solid operational performance and solutions centered on safety and efficiency.

And lastly, we've added new leaders to support Communications, our Information Technology & Data Analytics, our Government Operations and Strategy, and I'd like to thank them for stepping up to support our turnaround, and to our entire leadership team for their continued commitment.

As we look forward to the rest of the year, we are truly turning the corner in our recovery, rebuilding trust and delivering with more predictable, safe and high-quality products and services our customers need.

With our new values and behaviors guiding the way, we'll continue to make the necessary changes vital to our future success.

Thank you to the Board for your continuing trust and support, and thank you to our hardworking, talented employees for their commitment to our mission and our customers.

And I look forward to answering any questions that you may have.