Under a cloud: Boeing-Alaska Air episode shows loose regulation needs fixing as urgently as loose bolts on a plane door

Calhoun, who took charge in 2020, has clearly not been able to provide much of a remedy. (Image/AP)

Boeing chief executive officer (CEO) Dave Calhoun got emotional on Wednesday while talking about the hole blown into the side of one of his company’s planes. Though many would say that Calhoun should instead spend his time in fixing the planes, the misty eyes of the CEO made sense from Boeing’s perspective. Failing to look genuinely sorry could have been a disaster when faith in its products is deservedly low. Few should, however, actually sympathise with him as Boeing has only itself to blame for the mess it finds itself in. Calhoun had tried to assure the world last October about “adding rigour around our quality processes.” But the Alaska Air blowout 16,000 ft above the ground last week has shown how ill-founded the CEO’s confidence was. Many industry experts had pointed at Boeing’s preoccupation with financials and returns at the cost of engineering superiority and quality when the 2018 (Lion Air) and 2019 (Air Ethiopia) Max disasters happened. Calhoun, who took charge in 2020, has clearly not been able to provide much of a remedy.

Not only have Alaska Air and United Airlines reported loose bolts in Max 9 jets after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered grounding of 171 such planes, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation has too, in a Max series jet. Last April, Boeing had disclosed that its key fuselage-supplier—and former subsidiary—Spirit AeroSystems had installed two fittings in certain 737 Max models improperly, which delayed deliveries.

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In August, Spirit again received flak for incorrectly drilling holes in the fuselages. And in December, Boeing asked inspectors to look for loose bolts in the rudder control system. At the same time, the company had requested the FAA to exempt its latest 737 iteration from specific safety norms on anti-icing systems until May 2026 so that it could begin delivery even as it worked on fixing the issue. The series of events certainly doesn’t inspire confidence in Boeing’s manufacturing and quality assurances. The bottom line is clear: The Max series planes are facing intense scrutiny across jurisdictions, and the company must amply demonstrate its planes are safe.

Boeing’s failures create a further imbalance in the Boeing-Airbus duopoly. To be sure, Airbus too has its own share of troubles, with the issues detected in Pratt & Whitney manufactured engines forcing the grounding of its A320 Neo in many jurisdictions. Even so, the delays and the buyer uncertainty that are likely to hobble Boeing in the Alaska-Air aftermath can still be to Airbus’s benefit. Here, too, Boeing would have lost because of the shortcomings of its vision.

While the company must shoulder the bulk of the blame, the fault also lies with the inability of jurisdictions to hold multinational corporations accountable. Boeing was made to fire its then-CEO after the 2018 and 2019 crashes—but only a good year and a half after the first incident. While the Trump administration levied a $2.5 billion fine on the company, bear in mind that the company spent around $44 billion on share repurchases between 2013 and 2019. Also, there was no criminal liability for failing to inform the FAA of the software changes that contributed to the crashes. The short point is loose regulation needs to be fixed as rigorously as loose bolts on a plane door plug. The delivery delays that will inevitably result from the incident will cause a fair bit of pain to airlines across the world, but safety must be made the paramount concern.