Things were finally starting to look up for Boeing. After seven straight years of playing dodgeball with disasters… MAX crashes, doors blowing off mid-flight, airline execs foaming at the mouth, and billions in red ink (seriously, they lost $6 billion last year alone)... the company finally tapped someone who could clean up the mess: Kelly Ortberg.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Ortberg’s been at the helm for a year now, and Wall Street has been eating it up. The stock is up over 30% this year. Deliveries of commercial jets just hit an 18-month high. And the company is expected to halve its Q2 losses when it reports earnings this week. For once, the narrative wasn’t “how is Boeing gonna blow it this time?” Instead, it was “hey, maybe this is the start of something real.”

Then, of course… Boeing went full Cincinnati Bengals. Because just when things start clicking, something dumb always shows up to ruin the party.

This time, it’s a contract standoff. Over 3,200 workers in Boeing’s defense unit (the folks cranking out fighter jets like the Super Hornet and the Red Hawk) just gave Boeing’s “richest contract offer ever” a hard pass. The union, IAM Local 837, wasn’t impressed. They all but slammed the door and said, “Call us when you’re serious.”

There’s a seven-day cooling-off period, but a strike could begin as early as August 4. If it happens, it’d hit Boeing’s St. Louis-area plants… the same ones that make the aircraft the Pentagon really cares about. To put this in perspective: the last Boeing strike cost the company $6.17 billion in a single quarter. It was the most expensive strike in the U.S. in over 25 years. You’d think that’d leave a scar. But here we are again. Now to be fair, CEO Ortberg’s been doing real work. He raised $20 billion, booted some underperforming execs, and even moved to Seattle to be close to the action. One airline exec said the culture is finally changing after “decades of self-inflicted knife wounds.” (Which… accurate.)

The dream is that Boeing might finally post its first annual profit since 2018… a nice change of pace after spending the past few years setting money on fire. Ortberg’s also been making the rounds with investors, painting a rosy picture: jet output is trending up, delivery schedules are (allegedly) back on track, and even the FAA, after years of playing hall monitor, seems to be cooperating. But none of that will matter if they’re top workers walk. Let me spell it out for you: No workers = no planes. No planes = no revenue. No revenue = no cash to pay back that $20B.

So while analysts are hyped for Tuesday’s earnings (expecting around 150 commercial and 36 military deliveries) there’s now a big, fat “but” looming over everything. Yes, Ortberg’s turned sentiment around. But Boeing still feels one loose bolt away from another disaster. And this time, that bolt might be holding together labor peace. They’re not out of the woods… not even close.

And for investors thinking, “If we just keep this up a little longer, I might actually break even,” take a breath. Boeing’s giving off serious Cincinnati Bengals energy right now… MVP-level leader in Kelly Ortberg, offense finally clicking, momentum building… but then they fumble it with a contract dispute on the defensive side of the ball.

Just like the Bengals somehow end up beefing with key defenders when they should be chasing rings, Boeing is picking a fight with over 3,200 workers who build the jets that keep the Pentagon happy. Not a great look. (Almost as bad as trying to stiff the guy who leads the whole NFL in sacks.)

They’re playing with fire. And if Boeing keeps f***ing around, their employees are about to show them exactly how fast you can find out.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.