Boeing’s CEO is shrinking the jet maker to stop its crisis from spiraling

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The airline industry’s biggest names donned gowns and tuxedos and filed into a Manhattan ballroom Friday for a night of cocktails and fretting about the future of Boeing. One group was conspicuously absent.

After sponsoring six tables, Boeing scrapped plans to send its usual contingent to the annual Wings Club fundraising gala. The company gave away most of its gala tickets to customers. The chief executives of Lufthansa and United Airlines were there.

So was the chief executive of GE Aerospace, one of the world’s largest makers of commercial jet engines. Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, wasn’t there. He was hammering out a labor deal to end a damaging strike.

The tentative agreement reached Saturday between Boeing and leaders of its largest union would give machinists a 35% raise over four years. Even if the deal is ratified on Wednesday and union members go back to work, the company remains in a perilous financial position. Industry insiders and analysts have begun to ponder something previously unthinkable: whether a breakup or bankruptcy is in Boeing’s future if it remains on its current trajectory.

Boeing is exploring asset sales that could bring in much-needed cash while shedding noncore or underperforming units, according to people familiar with the discussions. Days before the gala, the company’s board met at Boeing’s Arlington, Va., headquarters, where directors quizzed division heads and combed through reports on the state of each unit, mulling next steps for the beleaguered plane maker. Boeing has spread itself too thin and must shrink, Ortberg wrote in a note to employees earlier this month.