Boeing and Airbus:
The Financials — February 2024

In 2023 Boeing again reported a net loss, though a lower loss than in the previous year, while Airbus was again profitable, albeit slightly down on the previous year. Over the past five years (2019-23) Boeing has accumulated a net loss of $24.1bn while Airbus has reported a total net profit of $9.6bn.

The stockmarkets’ verdict on the two OEMs is indicated by the graph. Up to the end of 2020, including the period when the MAX crisis emerged and the whole market plummeted when the implications of the pandemic became clear, the share prices of the two OEMs more or less tracked each other, then they diverged, with Airbus strongly outperforming Boeing. Currently, the equity market value of Boeing is about $123bn while Airbus is capitalised at the equivalent of $126bn; back in 2017 Boeing was valued at $175bn almost two and half times Airbus’s $73bn.