Boeing indicated on Tuesday that it could raise up to $25 billion (€23 billion) including by issuing and selling new shares to aid its ailing balance sheet after years of heavy losses, while factory workers of the US planemaker continue to strike, demanding a better salary.

Boeing said in back-to-back regulatory filings that it could raise the funds over the next three years and enter into a fresh agreement with lenders.

Years in the making

The planemaker hasn’t made an annual profit since 2018, losing more than $25 billion in total over the years that have followed.

Boeing’s reputation has been severely hit over that period which has seen two 737 Max jets crashing, killing 346 people.

Finances for the planemaker are currently under even more strain as a strike by workers who build most of its airline jets goes into its second month. The industrial action has deepened Boeing’s cashflow issues, slowing production and delivery.

Factory workers held a large rally in Seattle on Tuesday to demand better wages, adding pressure on new CEO Kelly Ortberg to end the dispute.

Hundreds of workers were in the main hall at union headquarters chanting “Pension! Pension! Pension!” and “One day longer, one day stronger!”

Boeing is cutting around 10% of its workforce — or 17,000 people — “over the coming months,” and postponing the launch of its first 777X jetliner. But factory workers in Seattle remained undeterred on Tuesday, as they continued to fight for higher wages and improved pensions.

Around 33,000 West Coast workers, most in Washington state, have been on strike since September 13, calling for a 40% salary increase spread over four years.

The strike has halted production of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX and its 767 and 777 twin-aisle aircraft. The company is typically paid on delivery with its orders from airlines, hence the additional short-term cashflow strain.

Boeing made an offer to raise hourly wages for striking workers by 30% but union negotiators rejected it, saying it “did not go far enough” to address concerns, and that the planemaker “has missed the mark with this proposal.”

Now entering its second month, the strike has no end in sight and has only added to the company’s litany of problems.

As a result of the action, Boeing has said it is pushing back first delivery of the 777X to 2026 from 2025. The plane was originally supposed to enter service in January 2020.

Share price boosted

But the company’s stated contingency plans did improve investor sentiment slightly on Tuesday, as shares of The Boeing Co roseby 2% in afternoon trading.

Boeing’s securities filings indicated that it has the ability to raise funds by offering stocks or debt over the next three years if needed, but also did not commit it to doing anything.

The planemaker said that it entered into a $10 billion supplemental credit agreement with several leading banks to provide short-term liquidity.

American credit assessment agency Fitch Ratings said the announcements increase Boeing’s financial flexibility and ease short-term liquidity fears. Management’s ability to tap capital sources other than debt “will help alleviate downgrade risks” by improving the likelihood of paying off debt that matures in 2025 and 2026, Fitch said.

The news comes as a welcome boost after credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s said last week it was considering cutting Boeing’s credit rating.

jsi/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters)

That Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh was among the finalists announced Tuesday morning for an American League Gold Glove Award should be no surprise for those who follow the defensive numbers.

Two Mariners named AL Gold Glove Award finalists

Raleigh in season and out has gone to great lengths to improve his defense, and the results show in both the eye and Statcast tests. How he got to the top was the result of multiple things – from the initiative he took in working this past offseason with Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges, who posted the best pitch framing numbers in the American League in 2023, to using (and ultimately taking) his resources in the Mariners clubhouse in 2024 when a problem arose. The latter comes via a story shared with Aaron Goldsmith and Gary Hill in a favorite Mariners Radio Network pregame show interview from this past season.

The problem? Raleigh’s glove-hand middle finger was taking a beating.

“Pitches, foul tips, blocking balls where I turned over and my finger would be exposed, I kept getting hit and hit in the same spot. And I’m like, ‘I gotta do something different cause the padding’s not working. The glove’s not working,’” Raleigh remembered.

Raleigh, who was also a Gold Glove finalist in 2022, sought out the advice of other catchers in and around the team and was told there was a simple fix. He needed to get a bigger glove to give himself more space to catch the ball.

“With the glove I was using, I couldn’t shift my hand to the left to give myself more room to catch when it’s not hitting the fingers,” he explained. “Normally when you put your hand in a glove, it goes in straight in and there’s like a slot for each finger. Now I shifted my hand over to where I’ve got three fingers where the pinky goes.”

While his glove wouldn’t allow him to get the fingers out of harm’s way, there was one glove found in the Mariners clubhouse that did. That glove belonged to Seby Zavala.

“It gave me more room to get hit in more places like the palm, where it doesn’t really hurt as much or just not hitting anything,” he said.

Raleigh was sold on the glove, but acquiring a broken-in, game-ready duplicate was just not possible in season. It was Zavala’s original, or nothing at all.

“I unfortunately took his glove. I ended up keeping it,” Raleigh said with a sheepish chuckle. “It was working so well. I’m like, ‘Hey, my hand feels so much better. My finger’s doing a lot better.”

The glove switch did not go unnoticed. The black and silver of Zavala’s previous team, the Chicago White Sox, was not a natural fit with Mariners’ teal. The No. 44 embroidered on the outside of the glove prompted questions.

“‘You have 44 on your glove. Is it for it for Julio?’”  I’m like. No, It’s Seby’s old glove,” Raleigh said. “I got him a nice gift for it. I was like, ‘I feel bad for taking your glove, but I need it. I really need it and I don’t have time to break into another one.’”

A No. 1 catcher has got to do what a No. 1 catcher has got to do. As a result, if Raleigh wins the Gold Glove, he will have done it with Zavala’s glove.

“That’s going to be kind of a funny story if that happens,” he said.

If Raleigh wins the Gold Glove, his glove forevermore will be adorned not by the red Rawlings nameplate on all but a precious few, but rather the gold version reserved for the award winners. What his gloves of the future will not have on them, though, is Zavala’s old No. 44.

“The Rawlings guy came the other day and I told him, ‘Hey, this is the glove I want. We’re switching it up.’ This is the glove and it’ll be mine. I’ll have my number and it’ll be mine so I won’t have to steal it from anybody hopefully.”

Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh sets two HR records with one swing

Not wanting to jinx himself, Raleigh was hesitant to talk about possibly taking the award, but he stressed that what is covered by the award is just one piece of what he feels it takes to be at the top of one’s game at catcher.

“It’s hard to win that award and I think it’d be really amazing,” he said. “Obviously you want to be the best of your position at what you do, but to me, more importantly is making sure that you got to do the things that aren’t kind of seen on the field. You’ve got to do the things away from it. Take care of your pitchers, game planning, calling games, running the show. That’s kind of the thing that people don’t really see sometimes when they do the Gold Glove because you’re looking at certain things like throwing out runners.

“You know the actual stats and metrics and all that stuff, which is great because you want to be the best at that as well, but you also want to be known around the league as the guy who knows how to run a staff and win games and do stuff like that. So that’s probably the No. 1 priority.”

The Gold Glove Award winners will be announced Nov. 3.

Listen to the full Seattle Mariners radio pregame conversation with Cal Raleigh in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post.

More on the Seattle Mariners

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• The Mariners’ top prospect is on fire in Arizona Fall League
• Report: Jorge Polanco undergoes surgery, played through injury
• MLB insider reacts to a pair of ‘what if’ Mariners scenarios
• Where Seattle Mariners prospects stand in latest MLB Pipeline update

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