Boeing crisis, trade tensions cast pall over air show

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/>