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Comment by foofie | Hacker News Reader

> Boeing's a weapons company that makes airplanes on the side.

I don't think this is an honest assessment. From your own source, Boeing's "Defense, Space, and Security" segment draw 39% of the company's revenue, while it's "Commercial Airplanes" segment accounted for 32% of its revenue.

I don't think that there is a single company on earth that would describe the source of a third of its whole revenue as something they do "on the side". Moreso when the top segment is barely over 5% larger, and is comprised of a coarse agglomeration of activities that may or may not be all related.

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But in the top third of the business, you listed Space, and they are not doing well there either. When was Starliner scheduled to launch, and when did it actually? Oh, it hasn't? Hmm...

Which direction are those figures trending though?

> Which direction are those figures trending though?

As Boeing's 737 MAX problems started in 2018 and all 737 MAX were grounded in 2019, I'd be surprised if these figures are already reflecting a considerable drop in Boeing's revenue from commercial planes.

I'm sorry, but the 737 MAX problems started well before 2018. The results of those problems were spectacularly made public in 2018.

> The results of those problems were spectacularly made public in 2018.

That's when potential customers start to say "hell no, get me Airbus' number" and Boeing's revenue from commercial planes starts to tank.

If you think the problem is the revenue, then you're part of the problem that Boeing has. Boeing's problem is they put the revenue people in charge and diminished the role of the engineering.

In 2008, commercial airplanes were 40.6% and defense was 52.5% of revenues.

I’m no fan of Boeing, but they’ve been focusing on the military for a very long time.

> I’m no fan of Boeing, but they’ve been focusing on the military for a very long time.

But it feels like they aren't succeeding. Didn't Boeing lose out on all the advanced fighter competitions to Lockheed, so all their fighters are last generation and headed for obsolescence? I'm also under the impression that the ULA is losing to SpaceX pretty badly (but maybe the government is pumping money into it for reasons, I don't really follow too closely).

I also don’t follow that stuff too closely, but yeah, those examples are exactly why Boeing doesn’t stop making commercial airplanes and completely pivot to defense contracting.

You _can_ make money hand over fist working with the US military, but winning giant money printing contracts is easier said than done. It’s a super volatile industry that Boeing unsurprisingly limits their exposure to.

Discussing anything related to the US military on HN can be frustrating, and the recent surge of “Boeing only really cares about their cash cow, defense” comments is no different.

Depends on what global services is

BGS is a combination of relatively random acquisitions, such as Aviall (aircraft parts and consumables wholesale) and Jeppesen (charts and training materials). Some military contracts in there, but mostly commercial.

Article says it's comprised of "supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance and modifications, upgrades and conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training systems and services, data analytics, and digital services."

I don't fully understand the breakdown, looks like they're doing some finance BS to push costs into the commercial and military segments (which report losses) and list global services as pure profit for some MBA reason. How else does the segment grow 180% year-over-year?

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