Raphael Stevens

The parent companies behind TJ Maxx and Ross Dress for Less are continuing to grow sales as inflation-weary consumers hunt for deals and become more comfortable with shopping at discounters.
The two retailers beat quarterly revenue and earnings expectations and are poised to keep growing, even against tough comparisons.
Analysts say the sector wins in any economic environment because it offers household, brand names at a better price.

A T.J. Maxx store in Pasadena, California.
Mario Anzuoni | Reuters

Off-price retailers like TJX Companies and Ross are still posting sales gains and taking market share from rivals, but it’s not just because consumers are under pressure and hunting for value. 
Persistent inflation and rising prices for essentials like food and gas have pushed shoppers to trade department stores like Macy’s and Kohl’s for discounters like TJ Maxx and Ross. But they’ve also become cooler places to shop, particularly among younger consumers, and their assortments have gotten better because brands increasingly view them as a growth channel as department stores continue to shrink and lose share. 

“They have trusted brands at a cheaper price. They’re more on-trend, they’re designer-led, they lean into categories that the customer is much more interested in,” said Jessica Ramirez, a senior research analyst with Jane Hali & Associates. “In terms of categories that maybe are not resonating as well, they pull back from them and they have that ability because of their … strategy. A department store doesn’t have that.”
TJX and Ross both reported fiscal first quarter earnings last week that came in better than Wall Street expected, even as both companies lapped outsize growth from the prior-year period. 
TJX, which runs brands like TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Homegoods, saw sales grow 6% to $12.48 billion, compared to estimates of $12.46 billion, according to LSEG. That’s on top of the 3% sales increase the retailer saw in the prior-year period. 
Ross, which runs Ross Dress for Less and dd’s Discounts, posted an 8% jump in sales, bringing revenue to $4.86 billion, compared to estimates of $4.83 billion, according to LSEG. That’s on top of the 3.7% gain it posted in the prior-year period. 
Both companies have grown substantially since 2019 and posted banner results throughout 2023.

The particularly strong performance last year led some Wall Street analysts to wonder if they’d be able to continue to grow sales up against tougher comparisons. They’ve managed to do just that – and the party isn’t expected to end anytime soon. 

Consumers are still prioritizing value 

As consumers contend with persistent inflation, rising debt and stubbornly high interest rates, they’ve been more selective about where they’re spending their precious discretionary dollars. Value has been top of mind. 
“We think that the off-price sector is still healthy and we think that results this quarter, both for [TJX] and Ross, are showing consistent traffic-driven comp increases, which indicate that the consumer is still looking for value and the consumer still finds off price’s business model of branded goods at value prices as an attractive buying opportunity,” Goldman Sachs analyst Brooke Roach told CNBC. She said she expects both companies to continue to grow this year, on top of the sales increases they saw last year.
The low-to-middle income consumer has been feeling the burn a bit more acutely than their higher income counterparts, but even shoppers with deeper wallets have been turning to discounters for not just necessities, but also discretionary items. 
During a call with analysts on Wednesday morning, TJX’s finance chief John Klinger said the company is seeing comparable sales increase in areas where the average household income is both above and below $100,000 – a theme the retailer has seen consistently over the last year. 
Ross’s Chief Operating Officer Michael Hartshorn said the company is also continuing to attract a broad array of consumers across a variety of income levels. 
Even discounters like Walmart and Dollar Tree are making gains with high-income consumers. On May 16, Walmart beat quarterly earnings and revenue expectations in part because of the work it’s done to win over more high-income shoppers. Earlier this year, Dollar Tree said its fastest growing demographic makes more than $125,000 annually. 

‘We’ve become a cooler place to shop’ 

The consumer’s flight to value has undoubtedly helped TJX and Ross boost sales over the last year, but both companies have steadily grown over time and tend to do well in any economic cycle. 
“That’s because they’re providing consistent value to the consumer – and that’s branded consistent value to the consumer at a discount price,” said Roach. “So if you look, historically, in times of economic strength, these businesses were still market share gainers. We see no reason why that should change.” 
Simeon Siegel, a retail analyst for BMO Capital Markets, said off-price has managed to grow steadily in part because consumers are starting to see the stores in a different light.
“We need to also recognize that [TJX] convinced shoppers that they were fashionistas, not penny pinchers, and I think that was a very powerful and probably healthy shift in mindset,” said Siegel. “They took something that was embarrassing and turned it into a badge of honor. They took a transaction, turned it into an experience. It was no longer find something and hide it and wear it as if you bought it full price. Instead it became acceptable and exciting.” 
Siegel said the growth in off-price says just as much about consumer psyche and health as it does about this change in perception.
During TJX’s earnings call, CEO Ernie Herrman said the company has “become a cooler place to shop” and has made major inroads with the young Gen Z customer. 
“We are the only retailer right now that I see that is able to take brands and fashion and quality and put all of that together in this treasure hunt format,” said Herrman. 
The dynamic is a bit different at Ross, which has more exposure to the lower- and middle-income consumer than TJX does and competes more on price, said Siegel. During the first fiscal quarter, TJX’s growth was “entirely driven by customer transactions,” which means more people were shopping there. Ross cited higher average selling prices, offset by fewer units per transaction. 

Brands’ best kept secret 

In the past, the off-price sector was seen as a place for brands to offload last season’s inventory, or items that didn’t pass quality control tests. These days, the chains have become a destination for companies looking to grow wholesale revenue, even if they’re not broadcasting it. 
“Companies will continue to talk about [putting fewer of] their products in the off-price channel at the same time that they may very well be sending orders straight to them,” said Siegel.
The aisles at off-price retailers aren’t filled with private label junk, but instead, the kinds of household names that consumers know and love like Nike, Adidas, Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren. 
For a while, many of those big names tried to cut the number of items they were selling in the off-price channel — and through wholesalers overall — so they could grow sales in their own websites and stores. But many brands are starting to retreat from that strategy and are increasingly seeing the value that wholesale partners of all varieties can offer. 
“If you’re a large brand, you’re watching department stores give up share and you realize that [direct-to-consumer] is no longer the Holy Grail that you thought it once was, there are shrinking places to sell a lot of units,” said Siegel. “And if you’re a large brand, you need to sell a lot of units.” 
As brands have seen consumers change how they view off-price stores, they’re more willing to sell to chains like TJX and Ross, especially because they can do so “invisibly,” said Siegel. 
Department stores like Macy’s, for example, have a massive online presence and regularly blast out promotions on name brand items, which can have a dilutive effect on brand equity. In comparison, the bulk of TJX’s and Ross’s business is done in stores, so the markdowns aren’t as obvious or visible. 
“As off-price becomes a bigger part of the U.S. apparel ecosystem, we’ve seen that off-price has become more important to brands across the apparel and accessories sector,” said Roach. “[TJX] specifically has talked about strengthening relationships and the ability to be better partners with those brands, and that they are an attractive partner because they are growing and those brands can grow with them.” 
The CEOs of both TJX and Ross talked about their strong vendor relationships and how they’re getting access to better products at scale. 
“At a high level, the merchants improved the value offerings that they had, whether it’s different assortments, broader assortments, better quality, better products. So I think we’ve taken our first step forward there,” said Ross CEO Barbara Rentler. “We feel like there’s room for us to improve and if we continue to improve, even this low-income customer, if we can satisfy her, we should do fine.” 
TJX’s CEO put it a bit more bluntly. 
“More and more vendors, they have even more reasons to want to sell us versus others because their goods in our store now hang with the best,” said Herrman. “They’re dealing with a buying team that’s very straightforward and a company that has cash and will be paying.”  More

U.S. health officials have been monitoring and responding to bird flu in humans, even as they emphasize that the risk to the general public remains low. 
A strain of bird flu called H5N1 has been confirmed in dairy cows across nine U.S. states, as well as in two people.
Some infectious disease experts say the U.S. government appears to be generally prepared if bird flu begins to spread more widely and easily to humans, especially compared with how equipped the country was for the Covid pandemic.

Cows are seen standing in a feedlot on June 14, 2023 in Quemado, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

U.S. health officials are monitoring and preparing to combat bird flu in humans, even as they emphasize that the risk to the general public remains low. 
A strain of bird flu called H5N1 has been confirmed in dairy cows across nine U.S. states, as well as in two people, amid a global outbreak among poultry and other animals. The latest case was announced Wednesday in a dairy farm worker in Michigan. A child in Australia was also recently infected with bird flu, the country announced Tuesday.

H5N1 has been spreading among more animal species worldwide since 2020, but its detection in U.S. livestock earlier this year was a twist health officials did not expect. In rare cases, bird flu viruses spread to humans and can cause mild to severe symptoms that can require hospitalization. 
There is currently no evidence that H5N1 is spreading from person to person. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also said the risk of infection is higher among farmworkers than in the general population. 
Still, the U.S. government, along with state and local health departments, are monitoring new and emerging infections among humans and animals. Federal agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere have also tracked the H5N1 virus for years to monitor its evolution. 
The U.S. government has long stockpiled vaccines and drugs to be used in a possible bird flu pandemic. Last week, it started the process of preparing nearly 5 million doses of vaccines expected to be well-matched against H5N1, among other efforts to respond, the Health and Human Services Department confirmed to CNBC. 
Some infectious disease experts told CNBC the U.S. government appears to be generally prepared if bird flu begins to spread more widely and easily to humans, especially compared with how equipped the country was for the Covid pandemic. The experts said most of the necessary tools are already on hand but the government must ensure it deploys them effectively, if needed. 

“There’s a lot of pieces that are already in place that help us understand that we can respond to this faster,” said Dr. Andrew Pekosz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “As is always the case, though, it’s about the efficiency of our responses, right? We know what we can do. We just have to be able to do it effectively.”
The latest human infection, in the Michigan dairy worker, is not a surprise, according to both experts and the government. The CDC said Wednesday that similar cases in humans could be identified because high levels of the virus have been found in raw milk from infected cows.

Millions of vaccine doses

The U.S. government currently has two vaccine virus candidates that it believes are a good match for H5N1. Those candidates are weakened versions of a virus that trigger a protective immune response against it in the body and can be used to produce vaccines.
Both of the candidates are already available to manufacturers, according to the CDC. The government last week started the process of manufacturing 4.8 million doses of those human vaccines in case they are needed, HHS confirmed. 
Pekosz called those doses a “first line of defense in case we do see some human-to-human transmission.” He said that number is enough to stem an outbreak in its early stages, which could include vaccinating farm workers and some health-care workers. 
But he said far more are needed for the more than 300 million people in the U.S. if the virus spreads widely among humans. 
“Five million doesn’t really get us very far. It’s just a quick start,” Pekosz said. 
U.S. health officials said May 1 that the government could ship more than 100 million doses of human bird flu vaccines within three to four months if needed, NBC News reported. 
Notably, people will need two doses of a vaccine, meaning that 100 million doses is enough for only 50 million people. That suggests the U.S. would need roughly 600 million shots if it wanted to vaccinate the entire population. 
The government faces a difficult decision on how many shots to prepare, especially since it takes a few months to make them.
“It’s either too little or too much. For example, if you make too much food, then a lot of food goes to waste,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at UCSF Health. “That’s really the whole big conundrum now with a vaccine whenever you have a potential threat. It’s the high cost and high-risk aspects.”
Chin-Hong said misinformation and vaccine hesitancy after Covid makes that decision all the more challenging. But he said he believes “you can never really invest too much” in preparing for potential pandemics, especially at a time when climate change, population growth and other factors make them increasingly likely to happen.
The Food and Drug Administration would need to approve bird flu vaccines before they roll out. But Pekosz said that will likely be a “rapid procedure” since the FDA is accustomed to clearing seasonal flu vaccines, which are made using the same manufacturing process as bird flu shots. 

Potential mRNA shots

U.S. health officials are also in talks with messenger RNA vaccine makers about potential bird flu shots for humans. Few details have been shared about those negotiations, but HHS said a final announcement is expected soon. 
Unlike traditional flu shots, mRNA works by teaching cells to produce a harmless piece of a virus, which triggers an immune response against certain diseases. It is the same technology both Pfizer and Moderna have used in their Covid vaccines. 
Chin-Hong said mRNA vaccines could be updated more quickly to match the currently circulating strains of the bird flu. But he said those vaccines have their own challenges, such as needing to be stored at extremely cold temperatures.
In a statement to CNBC, Moderna confirmed that it is involved in negotiations with the government regarding its experimental pandemic influenza shot, mRNA-1018. It targets the exact strain of the virus responsible for the outbreak in dairy cattle. 
The biotech company began testing that shot in an early- to mid-stage trial last summer.
Pfizer declined to confirm negotiations with the government. The company said it is continuing to monitor the spread of H5N1 and study its mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccine candidates in an early trial. 

Virus surveillance and treatments

The CDC and its partners, including state and local health departments, use multiple surveillance systems to monitor seasonal influenza and other illnesses. They also have specialized methods to detect and monitor new flu viruses. 
Seasonal influenza spreads mostly among humans with predictable peaks during the year, while bird flu spreads mostly among wild birds and other animals.
The CDC said it is looking for the spread of H5N1 to or among people in areas where the virus has been identified in animals or humans. So far, the agency has found “no indicators of unusual influenza activity in people,” including H5N1, according to an update on the agency’s site from last week. 
The CDC also performs ongoing analyses of seasonal and new influenza viruses to identify genetic changes that might allow for them to cause more serious infections in humans, spread more easily to and between people or become less susceptible to vaccines and drugs.
While there is robust testing on the federal, state and local levels, it is far more difficult for an average person to self-screen and get diagnosed for bird flu like they can for Covid, Chin-Hong said. That’s “the big barrier, particularly in the populations that are getting affected now,” he said.
Chin-Hong is referring to farm workers, a large share of whom are immigrants, who may struggle to navigate the U.S. health system due to language barriers and health-care access. 
If people do contract the virus, there are a few FDA-approved antiviral drugs for seasonal flu that can be used for bird flu. That includes Tamiflu, which is an oral prescription medication that should be taken within 48 hours of experiencing symptoms. 
A Texas dairy farm worker who was diagnosed with bird flu in March was treated with an antiviral drug and recovered, according to a CDC report.
But Pekosz said the antiviral drugs in the nation’s stockpile are likely not enough for the vast majority of the population, so manufacturers may be asked to scale up supply.
The average person can protect themselves from bird flu by avoiding any living or dead animals that might be infected, such as livestock or chickens, according to Francesca Torriani, infectious disease specialist with UC San Diego Health.
People who need to make contact with those animals should wear the appropriate mask and eye protection and wash their hands afterward.
Torriani added that pasteurized milk and cheese are likely safer to consume than raw dairy products since the pasteurization process kills harmful bacteria.

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The United Auto Workers union is challenging the results of last week’s organizing vote of Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama, in which workers voted against union representation.
The union alleges the German automaker fired four pro-union workers, forced workers to attend anti-union meetings, and interfered with workers’ ability to advocate for the union.
The UAW is asking the NLRB to order a new election.

United Auto Workers (UAW) members and supporters on a picket line outside the ZF Chassis Systems plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.
Andi Rice | Bloomberg | Getty Images

DETROIT – The United Auto Workers union is challenging the results of last week’s organizing vote of Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama, in which workers voted against union representation, and is asking federal officials to order a new election.
Among a dozen or so claims, the Detroit union alleges that the German automaker fired four pro-union workers, forced workers to attend anti-union meetings, and interfered with workers’ ability to advocate for the union.

Union organizing failed at the Alabama plant with 56% of the vote, or 2,642 workers, casting ballots against the UAW, according to the NLRB, which oversaw the election. More than 90% of the 5,075 eligible Mercedes-Benz workers voted in the election.
“All these workers ever wanted was a fair shot at having a voice on the job and a say in their working conditions,” the UAW said in a statement. “And that’s what we’re asking for here. Let’s get a vote at Mercedes in Alabama where the company isn’t allowed to fire people, isn’t allowed to intimidate people, and isn’t allowed to break the law and their own corporate code, and let the workers decide.”
The National Labor Relations Board confirmed Friday afternoon that its Atlanta-based office received the UAW’s objections to the election. Friday was the last day the union could file objections and challenge the election.
Mercedes-Benz in a statement Friday said company officials “worked with the NLRB to adhere to its guidelines and we will continue to do so” through the objection process. The automaker said it “sincerely hoped the UAW would respect our Team Members’ decision.”
The NLRB said its regional director will review the UAW’s allegations of an unfair election. If she finds that the objections raise substantial and material issues of fact that could be best resolved by a hearing, she will order a hearing. If after the hearing, she finds that the employer’s conduct affected the election, she can order a new election.

The agency also reconfirmed that it is processing and investigating unfair labor practice charges filed by the UAW against automakers, including six unfair labor practice charges against Mercedes-Benz since March.
After the results were announced, UAW President Shawn Fain accused the company of conducting an anti-union campaign, including “egregious illegal behavior,” but he declined to discuss the union’s potential plans to object to the results.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain during an online broadcast updating union members on negotiations with the Detroit automakers on Oct. 6, 2023.
Screenshot

Fain said on May 17 that the union would continue to move forward with its charges against Mercedes-Benz, which allege that Mercedes-Benz has “disciplined employees for discussing unionization at work, prohibited distribution of union materials and paraphernalia, surveilled employees, discharged union supporters, forced employees to attend captive audience meetings, and made statements suggesting that union activity is futile,” the NLRB previously said.
The Alabama results were a blow to the UAW’s organizing efforts a month after it won an organizing drive of roughly 4,330 Volkswagen plant workers in Tennessee.
The Mercedes-Benz vote was expected to be more challenging for the union than the vote at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, where the union had already established a presence after two failed organizing drives in the past decade and where it faced less opposition from the automaker.

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Eli Lilly said it is investing another $5.3 billion in a manufacturing plant in Lebanon, Indiana, to expand the supply of its highly popular weight loss drug Zepbound, diabetes treatment Mounjaro and other medicines in its pipeline.
Demand for Zepbound and Mounjaro has far outpaced supply over the past year, spurring shortages in the U.S. and forcing the pharmaceutical giant to invest heavily to scale up its manufacturing.
That new commitment brings Eli Lilly’s total investment at the site to $9 billion.

An injection pen of Zepbound, Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug, is displayed in New York City on Dec. 11, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Eli Lilly on Friday said it is investing another $5.3 billion in a manufacturing plant in Lebanon, Indiana, to boost supply of its highly popular weight loss drug Zepbound, diabetes treatment Mounjaro and other medicines.
Demand for those treatments has far outpaced supply over the past year, spurring shortages in the U.S. and forcing the pharmaceutical giant to invest heavily to scale up its manufacturing.

That new commitment brings Eli Lilly’s total investment at the site to $9 billion. That makes it Eli Lilly’s largest manufacturing investment in its nearly 150-year history, the company’s CEO David Ricks said in a statement.
Eli Lilly expects the Lebanon site to start making medicines toward the end of 2026, and scale up operations through 2028. The company first announced its plans to build new Indiana sites in 2022. 
The plant will specifically increase Eli Lilly’s capacity to manufacture the active ingredient in Zepbound and Mounjaro, called tirzepatide. The company refers to those treatments as incretin drugs, which mimic certain gut hormones to suppress a person’s appetite and regulate blood sugar. 
“This multi-site campus will make our latest medicines, including Zepbound and Mounjaro, support pipeline growth and leverage the latest technology and automation for maximum efficiency, safety and quality control,” Ricks said in a statement.
Eli Lilly said 900 employees, including engineers, scientists, operating personnel and lab technicians, will staff the site when it is fully operational.

The company has spent more than $18 billion to build, expand and purchase manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe since 2020.
Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites either “ramping up or under construction,” Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told investors during an earnings call last month. That includes the Lebanon plant and another Indiana site, two locations in North Carolina, one in Ireland, one in Germany and a seventh site the company recently acquired from Nexus Pharmaceuticals. 
Investors cheered Eli Lilly after the company hiked its full-year revenue outlook by $2 billion, in part due to confidence about increased production of Zepbound, Mounjaro and other incretin drugs for the rest of the year.
“Now that we’re four months into the year, we have greater visibility into that, into these nodes of capacity and feel more confident,” Ashkenazi said during the call.

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Pharmacy staff at two CVS retail stores in Rhode Island voted to join a new national pharmacy union called The Pharmacy Guild.
The results signal growing momentum in a movement to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions. 
Pharmacy workers at locations open 24 hours a day in Wakefield and Westerly won their union elections.

The CVS pharmacy logo is displayed on a sign above a CVS Health Corp. store in Las Vegas, Nevada on Feb. 7, 2024.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

Pharmacy staff at two CVS retail stores in Rhode Island voted to join a new national pharmacy union on Friday, signaling growing momentum in a movement to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they allege are unsafe working conditions. 
Pharmacy workers at locations open 24 hours a day in Wakefield and Westerly won their union elections, making them the first stores to unionize in CVS’ home state, according to a release from the union. It comes a month after a CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas — which is not customer facing — became the first location to join the union, known as The Pharmacy Guild. 

The labor group will represent them in negotiations with CVS. 
“These are the first brick-and-mortar classic CVS model” stores to join the union, Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of The Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC. “This is really where my heart is … we’ve all worked for Walgreens or CVS in the classic retail setting, so we all know the working conditions there.” 
The two locations consist of nine of the company’s roughly 30,000 pharmacists in the U.S., a CVS spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. Some 700 CVS pharmacists are already unionized with other groups, they noted.
The spokesperson said the company respects its employees’ right to unionize or refrain from doing so. They added that the vote is the first of several steps in the collective bargaining process. 
If the National Labor Relations Board confirms the results, “we’ll negotiate in good faith with the union to try to reach an agreement,” the CVS spokesperson added. 

They said the company is committed to ensuring there are “appropriate levels of staffing and resources” at its pharmacies, using “a combination of staffing, labor hours, workflow process, and technology to do so.”
Jerominski and other organizers of a nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff in the fall partnered with IAM Healthcare, a union representing thousands of health-care professionals, to launch The Pharmacy Guild in November. That work stoppage spanned major drugstore chains such as CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, and drew widespread media attention to workers’ concerns. 
The Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many workers call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads across the industry that put both employees and patients at risk. The union also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients. 
The unionization effort reflects the years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who say they often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management. Many employees said the Covid-19 pandemic only exacerbated those issues, with new duties such as vaccinations and testing stretching pharmacy staff even thinner. 
The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country, Jerominski said. He added there could be more union filings for stores at companies other than CVS in the next several weeks.

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Boeing and NASA are moving forward with a June 1 launch attempt of the company’s Starliner capsule despite a “stable” leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system.
The mission, marking the first time Starliner carries U.S. astronauts, was postponed earlier this month.
“We know we can manage this [leak], so this is really not a safety of flight issue,” Boeing Vice President Mark Nappi said on Friday.

In this handout provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen illuminated by spotlights on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test on May 4, 2024 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Joel Kowsky | NASA | Handout | Getty Images

Boeing and NASA are moving forward with the launch of the company’s Starliner capsule, set to carry U.S. astronauts for the first time, despite a “stable” leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system.
“We are comfortable with the causes that we’ve identified for this specific leak,” Mark Nappi, Boeing vice president and manager of the company’s Commercial Crew program, said during a press conference on Friday.

“We know we can manage this [leak], so this is really not a safety of flight issue,” Nappi added.
Boeing is now targeting June 1 for the first crewed launch of its spacecraft, with backup opportunities on June 2, June 5 and June 6.
The mission, known as the Starliner Crew Flight Test, is intended to serve as the final major development test of the capsule by delivering a pair of NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station before flying routine missions.

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Starliner’s crew debut has been delayed by years, with SpaceX’s competing Dragon capsule flying astronauts for NASA regularly since 2020 under the agency’s Commercial Crew program. To date, Boeing has eaten $1.5 billion in costs due to Starliner setbacks, in addition to nearly $5 billion of NASA development funds.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen before docking with the International Space Station on May 20, 2022 during the uncrewed OFT-2 mission.

NASA and Boeing called off a launch attempt on May 6 about two hours before liftoff due to an issue detected with the Atlas V rocket that will lift Starliner into orbit. Atlas V is built and operated by United Launch Alliance, or ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

During the press conference Friday, a ULA official noted that the rocket’s problematic valve was replaced a week after the launch was postponed.
But after calling off the launch attempt, a “small” helium leak with Starliner was identified, causing Boeing and NASA to begin new assessments of the capsule and its safety for the mission. NASA Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox, one of the agency’s most senior officials, explained to the press on Friday that “it’s taken a while for us to be ready to discuss” the helium leak problem.
“It’s so complicated. There’s so many things going on. We really just needed to work through it as a team,” Bowersox said.
After analysis, NASA and Boeing believe the source of the leak is a seal in one of the flanges of the spacecraft’s helium propulsion system. In testing after the May 6 postponement, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said that teams “have seen that the leak rate isn’t changing.”
Stich explained that the plan is to monitor the leak in the lead-up to launch and, after reaching the International Space Station, reassess the leak rate.
“We don’t expect the other [seals] to leak, and I think that’s a confidence that we have,” Stich said.
Stich also emphasized that NASA has “flown vehicles with small helium leaks” before, including “a couple of cases” from missions flown by the Space Shuttle and SpaceX’s Dragon.
NASA, Boeing and ULA will hold another review on May 29 to review the leak. They plan to roll the rocket and capsule out to the launch pad on May 30 for the June 1 attempt. More