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- Boeing lost another $482 million in the third quarter on the new Air Force One aircraft.
- Losses now total more than $2 billion on the two planes.
- Boeing pushed the delivery date back by another two years.
Boeing lost another $482 million on building two planes that will become the new Air Force One, according to its latest earnings report.
The company attributed the losses to higher than estimated manufacturing costs, engineering changes, labor instability, and negotiations with suppliers.
Boeing is under contract to replace the pair of 747 Jumbos that transport the US President around the world.
Known as VC-25Bs, the new aircraft will be larger and more fuel efficient, allowing the US Air Force to save roughly $1.9 billion in operations and maintenance costs during the jets' 20 to 30-year lifespans.
However, ongoing issues have brought Boeing's total losses to more than $2 billion since construction began in 2018, and pushed the delivery date of the two jets back by another two years to 2026, CNN reported.
Donald Trump was personally involved in the negotiations with Boeing when he was in the White House and threatened to cancel the contract. His administration ultimately signed a fixed-price agreement that leaves Boeing liable for any cost overruns.
The cost of the project is now thought to be well over $5 billion. When Air Force One was last replaced during the George H.W. Bush administration, the bill was just $660 million, or roughly $1.45 billion today, the Los Angeles Times previously reported.
Last year Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun admitted that signing the contract was a mistake.
"Air Force One I'm just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn't have taken, but we are where we are," he said on an earnings call.
Calhoun struck a more positive tone on the latest call, however.
He said recovery in the Defense, Space, and Security division was "slower than I'd like, but we're confident in the future." , and our path to normalizing BDS margin performance by that '25 and '26 time frame is intact," Calhoun said, per Defense News.
Revenue rose 13% to $18.1 billion, reflecting the delivery of 105 commercial aircraft, while the net loss narrowed from $3.3 billion to $1.6 billion.
The order backlog stands at $469 billion, including more than 5,100 commercial airplanes.
Boeing did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.