While aerospace company Boeing’s (BA) recent plans to cut costs made some sense, particularly in light of the production problems that marked most of the last half of 2024, some plans might be going a bit far. But even Boeing managed to take a step back from its plan to launch mass-scale worker surveillance programs.
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Boeing was set to engage in a large scale surveillance of its workers, which featured “workplace occupancy sensors” throughout the Everett location office towers. On the surface, this might not sound so bad, as it may just be referring to those sensors for the lights that detect movement and shutoff the lights when no one is in the room.
The program apparently called for not only motion detectors, but also full-on cameras mounted in ceiling tiles. The massive camera system was intended to “…feed data to Boeing real estate and facilities managers about how many people are coming to the office and using specific spaces, and for how long.”
But Boeing workers—likely already concerned for their jobs given everything that has already happened—bridled at the notion of constant digital surveillance. But Boeing assured workers that the quality of the photographs taken would be so low as to be useless for any kind of identification.
No Max Roll Outs
As if that news weren’t bad enough, Boeing then followed up this catastrophe with another doozy. Word from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is that Boeing has not yet started to produce 737 Max aircraft. It plans to do so later this month.
Apparently, Boeing’s plan is to up its production by the end of this month, and then pick-up the pace in January, when it has another meeting with composite material maker Whitaker. Whitaker noted that Boeing was “…focused on their workforce, the training, making sure they have the supply chain sorted out.” Which sounds good, but it does not put cash in pocket.
Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 15 Buys, six Holds and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 34.8% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $193.38 per share implies 25.04% upside potential.
