Boeing Co. pushed back the debut of its 777X jetliner and said it would absorb a US$6.5 billion pretax charge, citing the coronavirus pandemic and close regulatory scrutiny of its newest plane.

The first delivery of the behemoth 777X won’t be until late 2023, three years behind the initial schedule, Boeing said in an earnings statement Wednesday. Additional writedowns brought total charges to US$8.3 billion, with hits to the company’s services division and a military tanker, to close out one of the worst years in th U.S. planemaker’s century-long history.

Boeing is working its way out of a grinding slump brought on as the pandemic worsened the financial pressures from the long grounding of the company’s 737 Max following two deadly crashes. Troubles have also been mounting for another critical jet program, the 787 Dreamliner, while new strains of the coronavirus threaten to postpone a much-anticipated recovery in global travel.

”I’m sure glad 2020 is in the rear-view mirror,” Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said in an interview on CNBC. While investors may have been surprised by the laundry list of charges that the company revealed, “they don’t cloud my view of the future, and the company’s view of the future.”

Boeing fell 3.8 per cent to US$194.45 at 9:39 a.m. in New York amid broad market declines. The shares tumbled 37 per cent during the 12 months through Tuesday, the worst performance on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

“It’s hard to see much upside here,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Jonathan Raviv said in a note to clients. The results are “reminder that the COVID impacts are long-lasting and reflect the reality that aero is ‘lower-for-longer.’”

Boeing declined to provide financial guidance for 2021, a contrast with suppliers such as General Electric Co. and Raytheon Technologies Corp., which offered forecasts when they reported earnings Tuesday. Investors will be looking for more detail from Boeing on the Max recovery, 777X delays and 787 issues when Calhoun and his colleagues host a conference call with analysts at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.

The Chicago-based company burned through US$4.27 billion in the fourth quarter, more than the US$4 billion average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales fell 15 per cent to US$15.3 billion, slightly better than expected.

The U.S. manufacturer’s finances have been squeezed after it delivered just 157 jetliners last year, the lowest total in decades, versus 566 jet shipments by rival Airbus SE.

“This whole new strain and the second wave, we all knew it was coming,” Ken Herbert, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, said in an interview before the results were announced. “It’s just more than anyone expected three or four months ago.”

In one encouraging sign, Boeing said it has delivered more than 40 Max jets since the U.S. grounding ended in November and five airlines have returned the model to service. Boeing is relying on handing over more of the single-aisle jets this year to bolster cash generation and fuel a financial turnaround.

The delay of the 777X adds a new drag, however, as demand languishes for twin-aisle planes built to carry passengers across oceans. Designed as the heir to the 747 jumbo, the updated 777 features wings so long that the hinged tips flip upward when it taxis around airports.

--With assistance from Ryan Beene and Keith Gerstein.