“Within 2026, we expect first-quarter free cash flow will be a usage similar to 2025, driven by normal seasonality.”

In context

“I shared last month. For clarity, this outlook contemplates an unfavorable impact of roughly $1 billion in 2026 associated with incorporating Spirit. Consistent with the profile we have discussed previously, cash flow is expected to grow year over year, primarily on higher commercial deliveries, better performance at BDS as that business continues to stabilize, and continued steady growth at BGS. This outlook continues to assume significant capital expenditures for future products and growth, particularly in St. Louis and Charleston. CapEx ramped up over the second half as we expected, with nearly $3 billion invested in the business in 2025. These higher investment levels will continue into 2026, and we expect to spend closer to $4 billion this year, including the incorporation of Spirit. Within 2026, we expect first-quarter free cash flow will be a usage similar to 2025, driven by normal seasonality. We expect 2026 to be a use of cash, with the second half turning positive and accelerating sequentially. As we've discussed, there are a number of impacts to 2026 free cash flow that we expect to be temporary in nature and improve over time. Let me add a bit of color on each category and highlight the actions required to work through them. As I just covered, we expect 2026 free cash flow to be between $1 billion and $3 billion. Part of where we end up in that range may be influenced by the realized impact of these issues. The most significant impacts are related to the delayed certification and first delivery on the 777X program, as well as the prior delivery delays on the 737 and 787 programs. On 777X, regarding net cash burn, with first delivery planned for 2027, our production system e”