An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles approaches for landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States in Washington, U.S. Joshua Roberts | Reuters
Boeing executives spent years after two fatal 737 Max crashes trying to convince Wall Street, regulators, airlines and the flying public that they had an eagle eye on quality, reliability and safety. Then on Jan. 5, about six minutes and 16,000 feet into a packed flight out of Portland, Oregon, a door plug blew out of a nearly new Boeing 737 Max 9. The panel was missing key bolts that hold it in place, which the company had removed to fix damaged rivets, according to early accident reports. No one was seriously injured, but the harrowing flight jolted Boeing's leaders back into crisis mode. It also reignited scrutiny and skepticism from the same groups the iconic plane-maker spent years trying to win back after the two Max crashes. Now Boeing's leaders say they have charted a path forward to fix the company: Better oversight, improved safety and manufacturing procedures, and more robust training for workers, many of them new hires after pandemic-era buyouts and layoffs of thousands of employees. Boeing this month unveiled a long-awaited deal to buy back its troubled fuselage supplier, Spirit AeroSystems , in a bid to help stamp out production flaws. A week later, Boeing said it reached a deal with the Justice Department to plead guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government tied to the fatal 737 Max crashes. Attorneys representing crash victims' families blasted the agreement as a "sweetheart" deal. If approved by a federal judge, it would allow Boeing to avoid a potentially lengthy and costly criminal trial, though it would also brand Boeing as a felon. "This past January, the facade quite literally blew off the hollow shell that had been Boeing's promises to the world," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in testimony for a Senate panel hearing he called last month, where Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was roasted by lawmakers.
The fuselage plug area of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, Boeing 737 Max 9, which was forced to make an emergency landing with a gap in the fuselage, is seen during its investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Portland, Oregon, U.S. January 7, 2024. NTSB | Via Reuters
Boeing finance chief Brian West told investors in May that the company expects to burn, rather than generate, cash this year, some $8 billion in the first half of 2024. It reports quarterly results on July 31. "This company is more important than a few quarters of Wall Street," Aengus Kelly, CEO of aircraft leasing giant AerCap , a major Boeing customer, said in an interview in the spring. "It has to be nurtured and rebuilt." Boeing will be back on the global stage next week during the biennial Farnborough Airshow in the United Kingdom, one of the world's largest aircraft shows. But the manufacturer will have a muted presence: It's not sending its yet-to-be-certified 777X, 737 Max 7 or Max 10 planes as Boeing employees focus on the fixing problems at home rather than showcase its new planes as it did during past air shows.
