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The director of one of Boeing Co’s biggest clients, Emirates Dubai, wants the aircraft maker to demonstrate fundamental changes after producing a faulty 737 MAX aircraft and has urged it to acknowledge “guilt and responsibility” from the top.
Emirates Airline Chairman Tim Clark gestures while speaking during an interview with Reuters in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on January 13, 2021. REUTERS / Abdel Hadi Ramahi
DUBAI: The director of one of Boeing Co’s biggest customers, Dubai’s Emirates, wants the aircraft manufacturer to demonstrate fundamental changes after producing a defective 737 MAX aircraft and has urged it to acknowledge “guilt and responsibility” from above.
Influential Emirates Chairman Tim Clark said a crisis over his 737 MAX crashes had damaged the air travel industry as a whole, but he was confident the redesigned plane was safe.
“Boeing needs to take a good look at themselves – I’m sure they have,” Clark told Reuters.
“But they have to (show) evidence to people like the airline community, the traveling public, that they have made the changes that are required of them in a transparent way,” he said, while suggesting a shift in emphasis on financial matters. .
“That (can only) be done at the board level and run … at the top level,” Clark said. “I think they still have work to do at Boeing to fix their problems … There is a top-down guilt and responsibility and they need to recognize that.”
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Comments from the director of one of the world’s largest airlines, with Boeing planes worth more than $ 50 billion at list-on-demand prices, are among the most direct criticisms of airlines since the ban was lifted. 20 months of MAX flights in December.
Last week, Boeing agreed to pay $ 2.5 billion in a settlement with federal prosecutors for one count of fraud conspiracy over the flawed development of the MAX.
Clark’s criticism, directed at the highest echelons of the world’s largest aerospace company, stood in contrast to the deal’s focus on two lower-tier Boeing employees who prosecutors say misled US regulators.
The plane, a staple of short-haul travel around the world, was grounded in March 2019 after crashes related to faulty software.
‘Deck deck’
“Clearly there were processes and practices, attitudes, DNA if you will, that needed to be worked out from the top down. There is no point shuffling the deck,” Clark said, though he did not go into precise actions Boeing should take.
Boeing should understand the extent of the damage to the industry and make “fundamental structural changes,” Clark said.
Since the accidents, Boeing has fired its former chief executive, added a board safety committee and agreed to strengthen internal controls. However, Boeing sought out its new CEO with a board member, Dave Calhoun, a longtime board member.
He says he has learned “many difficult lessons” from the crisis.
On Wednesday, Calhoun named Mike Delaney director of aerospace safety, a new role.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration, which has admitted errors during certification, has seen its global leadership clouded by the crisis.
Clark backed the European Union Aviation Safety Agency for taking a “very hard line” on the redesign.
“This is not some kind of scrutiny at the maternity level,” she said. “This is a detailed evaluation of everything that makes that plane fly, so I think it should be something people should be calm about flying.”
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Writing and additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Howard Goller)
