Boeing seeks Ryanair support with checks after mid-air blowout
Boeing has requested Ryanair to dispatch additional engineers for on-site quality inspections of its aircraft following the recent incident involving Alaska Airlines.
Ryanair’s CEO mentioned to the BBC that while there has been quality improvement, the incident highlighted the need for further enhancements.
The incident in question involved an unused door falling off a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. Although Ryanair operates the Max 8 variant and has Max 10s on order, not using the Max 9, the airline has been requested to provide additional oversight.
Despite being one of Boeing’s significant customers for the 737 Max family, with over 100 currently in service and plans for an additional 400 by 2034, Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, expressed reservations about complete confidence in Boeing’s quality control processes.
He noted that while there is now “more confidence” in Boeing, there is acknowledgment that further improvements are needed.
O’Leary mentioned that recent deliveries were the best in terms of defects in three years, and he views Boeing positively overall.
However, in response to the Alaska Airlines incident, Ryanair will be deploying more engineers to monitor quality control at Boeing’s facilities in Seattle and Wichita, where aircraft and fuselages for the airline are manufactured.
O’Leary likened the relationship with Boeing to a marriage, expressing admiration for the planes while acknowledging the occasional need for constructive criticism.
He suggested that the management team at Boeing “needs to be improved” following the incident, although he gave his support for Boeing’s current chief executive David Calhoun, stating that he is “doing a stellar job in very tough circumstances”.
Mr O’Leary added: “We don’t need more senior management changes in Boeing.”
On Monday, Boeing announced that an outside party would also be brought in to assess its production practices.
It will also check the work of the firm that supplies and installs the parts involved in the accident.
Last week, the US regulator extended the grounding of 737 Max’s with similar fuselage panels, while United and Alaska Airlines have said they were extending the cancellations of any flights involving the 737 Max 9 through until Wednesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also said it would conduct an audit of the plane’s production line, adding it believed there were “significant problems” with the 737 Max 9 jet as well as “other manufacturing problems”.
Announcing the latest measures, Stan Deal, who heads up Boeing’s commercial division, said the company was “not where we need to be”.
Scrutiny of Boeing has been renewed after the blowout on the Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to California, which forced an emergency landing but resulted in no serious injuries.
The US aerospace giant has been struggling to restore confidence after crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving a different plane in the 737 Max group killed 346 people.
Poor design of a piece of its flight control system was found to play a role in those crashes, and authorities grounded its popular 737 Max planes globally for more than 18 months. Poor oversight by the FAA was also cited.
On Tuesday, Boeing also announced that it had appointed Kirkland H. Donald, a former Navy admiral, as the independent advisor responsible for overseeing a review of its quality control systems for its commercial aircraft.
He and a range of experts will provide Boeing bosses, including Mr Calhoun, with a series of recommendations.
