Boeing Co

Boeing Co. has to make design changes to its 787 Dreamliner that may further delay the plane's entry into service, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said, citing International Lease Finance Corp., the new model's biggest customer. ILFC Chairman Steven Udvar-Hazy told a JPMorgan conference that the state of the 787 program was "not pretty" and that he didn't expect the first plane to be handed over until the third quarter of next year, said Joseph B. Nadol, an analyst at the bank.

Lockheed Martin Corp. beat out Boeing Co. to win a $766.2-million Pentagon contract to design and build a radio system connecting aircraft, ships and ground stations military-wide. The deal, announced Friday, could lead to the installation of tens of thousands of radios and ultimately be worth billions to the company.

Air Force representatives met last week with the chief executives of Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. to voice concern about the vitriolic tone of public statements over a $35-billion program for aerial refueling planes, two sources briefed about the meeting said Monday. The Air Force surprised the industry by awarding the contract for new tankers to Century City-based Northrop and its European partner, EADS. The decision triggered protests from Boeing and its supporters in Congress.

Boeing Co. confirmed Friday that it had pushed back the date for a possible replacement for its popular 737 line of jetliners by several years, saying it needed more time for technology advancement to occur. Chicago-based Boeing put together a team to "study the possibility of creating a new airplane for the narrow-body market" in 2006, Boeing spokeswoman Sandy Angers said Friday. Since the 737's 1967 debut, the aircraft has won Boeing more than 6,000 orders.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pledged to oversee a disputed $35-billion tanker contract after congressional investigators Wednesday detailed numerous mistakes the Air Force made in awarding the deal to Northrop Grumman Corp. and its European partner over Boeing Co.

Boeing Co. said its second-quarter results would be hurt by a 22-cent-a-share charge for previously reported delays on a program to convert commercial aircraft to military surveillance planes. Boeing still forecasts profit of $5.70 to $5.85 a share this year and $6.80 to $7 in 2009, the Chicago-based company said.

At Boeing Co.'s sprawling satellite-making complex in El Segundo, engineers for decades pioneered space systems that helped vastly alter the way we communicate by telephone and watch television today. But in recent years, the workload has sputtered under a cloud of slow orders, and the aerospace giant is now hoping for a lifeline from an upcoming Pentagon contract potentially worth more than $15 billion.

A dozen Boeing Co. machinists huddled over an oil-drum fire in the chilly morning drizzle, hooting as white trucks periodically cruised past them and into the gates of the massive airplane assembly plant. Belonging to a North Carolina contractor, the trucks carried parts for Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner -- which would be under construction inside were the union machinists not hurtling catcalls outside, locked in a seven-week-old strike that some estimate is costing Boeing $100 million a day.

Boeing Co. and machinists union leaders agreed on tentative terms for a contract that if approved by members would end the third-longest strike in the union's 73-year history and reopen the plane maker's closed factories. Agreement on a four-year contract, rather than the usual three years, would provide job security for machinists "and limit the amount of work outside vendors can perform in the workplace," the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said Monday.

After nearly 40 years of assembling fuselage sections for the world's largest flying passenger airliner, Vought Aircraft Industries Inc.'s sprawling Hawthorne factory appeared in danger of joining a long list of Southern California aerospace plants that have been shuttered in recent years. With orders for Boeing Co.'s 747 jumbo jet dwindling, the production rate steadily fell to one fuselage a month from a high of six a decade ago.