A Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS landing at El Prat airport in Barcelona, Spain, July 1, 2022 (AFP/Archives/Pau BARRENA)
The Irish airline Ryanair on Tuesday welcomed the strengthening of quality controls in Boeing’s American factories and announced a strengthening of its own checks, a few days after a spectacular incident in the United States on a 737 MAX from the American aircraft manufacturer.
At a meeting last week with Ryanair, Boeing “presented a plan to significantly increase the number of engineers performing quality control” at its sites and those of its main subcontractor, Spirit AeroSystems, the boss said. of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary.
The airline has for its part also “doubled (its) technical supervision of Boeing’s quality control” on the manufacturer’s sites, he added, speaking at a press conference in London.
Mr. O’Leary, however, assured that “under the leadership of Calhoun (Dave Calhoun, the CEO of Boeing, editor’s note) over the last two years, my confidence in Boeing has improved considerably.”
“We have loudly and clearly expressed our complaints regarding Boeing’s lack of quality control over the past two years,” recalled the manager, who emphasized having “noted a clear improvement in the quality of aircraft deliveries” in the meantime. .
Mr. O’Leary called last week on Boeing, but also on its European counterpart Airbus, to “considerably improve” their quality controls, a few days after an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 aircraft lost a door in mid-flight. .
Ryanair, a major Boeing customer which has complained on several occasions about the manufacturer’s delivery delays, does not have a 737 MAX 9 but other versions of the 737 including MAX 8s. 737 MAX 10s are on order.
The 737 MAX experienced fatal accidents in 2018 when a plane from the Indonesian company Lion Air crashed into the sea after taking off from Jakarta, and in 2019 with the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane a few minutes after its takeoff from Addis Ababa. These accidents led to investigations and long immobilization.
“This is certainly the most audited, most controlled and most regulated aircraft ever built,” Mr. O’Leary assured Tuesday. “But (Boeing) cannot make these kinds of mistakes,” he added, referring to the Alaskan flight incident.
The American Civil Aviation Regulatory Agency (FAA), which has opened a formal investigation into a possible failure by Boeing, announced Friday that all 737 MAX 9 planes will have to remain grounded until the manufacturer provide more data on this incident.
© 2024 AFP
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