Manufacturer with many problems
Boeing is delivering significantly fewer machines
April 9, 2024, 7:54 p.m
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Boeing has been struggling with quality problems and high-profile breakdowns for a long time. Now the number of machines delivered is also falling significantly. Experts are now giving the all-clear in view of the incidents and are also counting on competitor Airbus.
The trouble-plagued US aircraft manufacturer Boeing delivered significantly fewer aircraft in the first quarter than in the same period last year. From January to the end of March, 83 aircraft were delivered to customers – last year there were 130 aircraft in the three months, according to the company’s published figures. Competitor Airbus handed over a total of 142 aircraft to 45 customers in the first quarter, including 52 A320neo and 63 A321neo, as the company announced. Seven aircraft from the A350 family were also delivered.
Boeing has been struggling with serious quality problems for more than a year. The US regulatory authority FAA has therefore reduced production figures for the best-selling 737 MAX aircraft to the 2023 level. Boeing is allowed to produce 38 planes per month. The company had actually planned to have 50 machines from 2025.
Only 27 737-MAX aircraft were completed in January, as Chief Financial Officer Brian West announced in February. There has been no new information from the company since then. CEO David Calhoun has already announced his resignation at the end of the year because of the problems. He was actually supposed to fundamentally restructure Boeing after two 737 MAX planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. The reason was design errors.
Experts reassure after a series of mishaps
There has been an increasing number of Boeing aircraft breakdowns in recent months. In January, a Boeing 737 MAX lost a cabin door cover, in March a wheel came off during takeoff of a Boeing 777, and last week the takeoff of a 737 had to be aborted due to engine failure. And on Sunday, a Boeing 737 turned back because the engine cowling had come loose.
Aviation expert Bertrand Vilmer from the Paris-based company Icare aéronautique calls the frequency and type of defects and incidents “rare” and “completely abnormal”. However, Vilmer counters the impression that Boeing aircraft are particularly prone to failure. For example, hundreds of Airbus planes had to be grounded for months because of a contaminated component, he says. This problem has only been less reported.
“Every incident involving a Boeing aircraft this year has made headlines and created the impression that Boeing aircraft are not safe,” analysts at asset manager Bernstein noted in late March. “In fact, the number of incidents involving Airbus and Boeing aircraft in the U.S. year to date is proportional to the number of these aircraft in U.S. airline fleets.”
Richard Aboulafia, director of the consulting firm Aerodynamics Advisory, also gives the all-clear: “There hasn’t been a single death in the USA for well over ten years, even though millions of people fly every year,” he says. “But hundreds of people die on the streets every day.” Still, Aboulafia sees a problem with the maintenance industry worldwide.