Safety concerns, trade wars and growing security tensions in the Gulf are dampening spirits at the world’s largest planemakers as they arrive at this week’s Paris Airshow with little to celebrate despite bulging order books. The aerospace industry’s marquee event is a chance to take the pulse of the $150-billion-a-year commercial aircraft industry, which many analysts believe is entering a slowdown due to global pressures from trade tensions to flagging economies, highlighted by a profit warning from Lufthansa late on Sunday. Humbled by the grounding of its 737 MAX in the wake of two fatal crashes, Boeing will be looking to reassure customers and suppliers about the plane’s future and allay criticism of its handling of the months-long crisis. “This is a defining moment for Boeing. It’s given us pause. We are very reflective and we’re going to learn,” CE Dennis Muilenburg pledged on Sunday. The grounding of the latest version of the world’s most-sold jet over safety concerns has rattled suppliers and fazed rival Airbus, which is avoiding the traditional baiting of Boeing while remaining distracted by its own corruption probe. Aerospace executives on both sides of the Atlantic are concerned about the impact of the crisis on public confidence in air travel and the risk of a backlash that could drive a wedge between regulators and undermine the plane certification system.<br/>
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The CE of Boeing said the company made a “mistake” in handling a problematic cockpit warning system in its 737 Max jets before two crashes of the top-selling plane killed 346 people, and he promised transparency as the US aircraft maker tries to get the grounded model back in flight. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in Paris that Boeing’s communication with regulators, customers and the public “was not consistent. And that’s unacceptable.” The US FAA has faulted Boeing for not telling regulators for more than year that a safety indicator in the Max cockpit didn’t work. Pilots are angry the company didn’t tell them about the new software that’s been implicated in the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. “We clearly had a mistake in the implementation of the alert,” Muilenburg said. He expressed confidence that the Boeing 737 Max would be cleared to fly again later this year. The model has been grounded worldwide for three months, and regulators need to approve Boeing’s long-awaited fix to the software. Muilenburg called the crashes of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines jets a “defining moment” for Boeing, but said he thinks the result will be a “better and stronger company.” Speaking ahead of the Paris Air Show, Muilenburg said Boeing is facing the event with “humility” and focused on rebuilding trust.<br/>
Airline pilots have voiced fears over the safety of a fleet of Boeing aircraft after a crucial fire-fighting system has been found to have the potential to malfunction. Boeing has issued an alert to airlines using its flagship B787 Dreamliner, warning that the switch used to extinguish an engine fire has failed in a “small number” of instances. The switch also severs the fuel supply and the hydraulic fluid to prevent flames spreading. UK airlines Tui, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic operate more than 60 Dreamliners between them. The US regulator, the FAA, has decided not to ground the fleet, despite admitting a “risk to the flying public”. Pilots, however, claim that the safety of passengers and crew is being compromised. “If there was an engine fire on a transatlantic flight and the aircraft had one of the defective fire switches, then we would have to fly with a burning wing for up to three hours before we could safely land,” a pilot with a British airline said. In its alert to airlines, Boeing warns that long-term heating can cause the fire switch to stick in the locked position so it can’t be used to release the two fire extinguishers in each engine. The FAA has issued an airworthiness directive, mandatory instructions to air operators, announcing that the problem is “likely to exist or develop in other products of the same design” and that “the potential exists for an airline fire to be uncontrollable”. However, it stopped short of grounding the aircraft and instead ordered airlines to check the switch every 30 days.<br/>
Boeing is updating simulators for 737 Next-Generation aircraft after research conducted in two fatal 737 Max crashes revealed that they don’t accurately replicate the force required during a procedure critical for the pilots responding to both accidents. Pilots training on how to manually move the nose up or down on 737 NGs, the models that preceded the introduction of the Max, wouldn’t have felt accurate forces, the company said in an emailed statement. The procedure requires cockpit crews to crank two wheels in the cockpit. The company announced it also was fixing its 737 Max simulators last month. Moving the so-called manual trim wheels is a critical part of the emergency procedure needed to respond to the malfunction that pilots in Indonesia and Ethiopia faced before crashing. They were supposed to shut off an electric trim motor and make adjustments with a hand crank. “We are taking this step as part of our effort over the last several months to closely re-examine and improve our simulator capability,” the company said. “Boeing is working closely with the simulator manufacturers, operators and regulators to help ensure customer training needs are being met and further strengthened going forward.”<br/>
It’s a conundrum bordering on a crisis for the global airline industry: More people are flying to more places, but the number of pilots is not keeping up. “Airlines have had to go to greater lengths to recruit pilots,” said Nick Leontidis, group president of civil aviation training solutions at CAE, an aviation education company. “If it took a month to recruit 50 pilots, it takes six months now.” Reports from airplane manufacturers, industry associations and pilot labor groups point to a confluence of events. Not only are more people traveling by air, but airlines now link an unprecedented number of cities — 20,000 worldwide as of 2018. Often those markets are served by smaller planes, not the jumbo jets of a decade ago that could carry 450 people or more, and that makes for more flights. Demand for air travel is growing so quickly that 635,000 commercial pilots will be needed by 2037, according to a forecast produced by Boeing in 2018. The biggest need is in Asia, where an improving economy in China has resulted in more people traveling. More people are flying in the United States as well and, at the same time, pilots are hitting the mandatory retirement age of 65. For aspiring airline pilots like 24-year-old Ahkeel Leach, who spent his childhood traveling between his father’s home in New York and his mother’s in Britain, the industry’s challenge is a career opportunity. Though he had wanted to fly since he was a child, he did not know where to study or how to pay for it. “My family, we’re all immigrants. Aviation is one of those things you stick in the corner,” he said. “It’s a great job, but not everybody knows there are affordable avenues or has guidance to get there.” Story has more. <br/>