The American giant Boeing is in a cold sweat. " Boeing must become a better company and deliveries will follow" Bob Jordan, CEO of Southwest Airlines, recently admitted at an industry conference organised by JPMorgan. The aircraft manufacturer no longer seems to control its production chain. Quality control problems snowballing, anaemic production growth and delays in the certification of new aircraft are affecting the American manufacturer. And in turn, all the world's airlines.
Which, and this is the bad news for passengers, will mean a tightening of the screws on the airlines' expansion programmes. Hence ticket prices to remain high as demand will outstrip supply.
In the United States, the airlines are reporting one problem after another. Southwest has revised downwards its capacity and financial forecasts for 2024, due to a sharp fall in Boeing deliveries. The airline will receive 46 Boeing 737 Maxes, compared with the initial 79.
The CEO of United Airlines, Scott Kirby, said during the same JPMorgan conference that he had asked Boeing toto stop building its new Boeing 737 Max 10to concentrate on production of the Boeing 737 Max 9. " It is impossible to say when the Max 10 will be certified." said Mr Kirby. The company will therefore draw up a new growth plan without the Boeing Max 10, while suspending the recruitment of new pilots for the time being.
Slowdown in expansion by US companies
Since 5 January, when a door plug detached from a 737 Max 9 in mid-flight, Boeing is therefore coming under increasing pressure concerning factory quality control. The incident is attributed to missing bolts. The US Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, found insufficient controls during an audit.
In an interview with Reuters, Luc Tytgat, Acting Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), stressed that the agency called into question the quality control of Boeing aircraftbecause of recent aircraft safety incidents. Asked whether EASA would be prepared to reject the US authorities' approval of Boeing's production, Luc Tytgat replied in the affirmative.
Airbus A320neo affected by engine problems
A misfortune never comes alone, problems with aircraft engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney is also having a huge impact on many airlines around the world. It is estimated that more than 3,000 engines potentially need to be checked. This is expected to result in grounding and grounding of the aircraft. inspection of Airbus A320neo fleets equipped with the GTF engine at some forty airlines. The list includes Air New Zealand, JetBlue, Cebu Pacific, IndiGo, All Nippon Airways or Wizz Air.
" This could take 15 to 18 months to fix the problem after inspection. This automatically forces us to reduce our fleets at our ports of call and slow down our expansion." explained Robert Carey, Chairman of Wizz Air, at the CLJ aviation forum in Cluj, Romania.
