Boeing’s mid-air panel blowout has ‘shaken trust’. What travellers should know
globalnews.caThe fallout from the mid-air blowout of a panel on an Alaska Airlines flight last week adds to the already “checkered history” for Boeing’s MAX jets, experts say, and puts the company’s once-sterling commercial aircraft reputation further at risk.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun admitted earlier this week that the Virginia-based company made a mistake after an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5 had a door plug blowout shortly after take-off.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all 737 MAX 9 aircraft in the United States for inspection after the incident, and is investigating Boeing’s compliance with FAA standards.
The National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. is investigating the cause of the blowout.
Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, says it’s not just the Alaska Airlines incident prompting concerns about Boeing’s aircraft.
“The 737 MAX has a very checkered history and really has damaged Boeing’s reputation,” he says. “That has shaken trust in the MAX airplane again … This casts more doubt on that airplane specifically and Boeing more broadly.”
The FAA grounded Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 line after two deadly crashes of a Lion Air flight in October 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.
The MAX 8 line was grounded by the FAA for 20 months and longer in some jurisdictions such as China, which only lifted its ban last year. Transport Canada granted approval for airlines to fly the MAX 8 jets again in Jan. 2021, two months after they received FAA sign-off.
Harteveldt says that what especially harmed Boeing’s reputation in those incidents was that investigations found the company had concealed details about a new flight stabilization software that activated in both crashes.
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