Boeing CE David Calhoun expressed confidence that the 737 MAX would eventually transport passengers again despite repeated delays in winning regulatory approval for the troubled jet. “It will fly safely,” Calhoun said Wednesday, speaking publicly for the first time since taking over the top job at the plane maker last week. “When that happens, and pilots get on that airplane and support that airplane, I believe passengers will follow.” Calhoun said the company didn’t see a risk the plane wouldn’t resume service, even as it endures heightened scrutiny by the FAA and overseas regulators. His comments come a day after Boeing said it didn’t expect US regulators to approve the return of the MAX to commercial service until midyear, at least 3 months later than many analysts and industry executives had expected. <br/>
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Pilots’ unions say that their members’ trust in the safety culture at Boeing is at rock bottom following a string of revelations about the grounded 737 Max, presenting another big hurdle for the manufacturer as its seeks to return the jet to service. The plane maker’s crisis deepened late Tuesday after it admitted that the 737 Max will stay parked until the middle of this year. Restoring confidence among captains, on whom it is counting to repair the trust of the flying public, will be critical to Boeing’s ambitions. Trust is “unequivocally” at a nadir, said Jon Horne, president of the 40,000-strong European Cockpit Association, following the publication earlier this month of damaging internal messages in which employees mocked regulators and discouraged airlines from pursuing the most expensive pilot training options. <br/>
Boeing's bill for the 737 MAX grounding could balloon to more than US$25b, analysts estimated Wednesday, a day after the planemaker warned of further delay in returning its once best-selling jet to service. The company has already booked $9b in costs related to the grounding, including $5.6b as compensation for airline customers and $3.6b in charges to cover additional production costs. Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu said Boeing may now need to boost its compensation package for customers by another $10b and revise its cost estimate related to the 737 MAX's production by an additional $5.4b. "Our estimates assume 737 MAX deliveries restart in Q3 2020," Kahyaoglu said, lowering the brokerage's price target on the stock to $390 from $420. <br/>
The Flight Safety Foundation thinks that creating new, regionally based aircraft crash investigation teams could help bring impartiality and expertise to crash probes that might otherwise be hamstrung by politics, bias and technical inexperience. Recent commercial aircraft crashes and resulting investigations have led the non-profit to consider recommending such investigation teams be formed, at least in some regions of the globe, says Flight Safety Foundation CE Hassan Shahidi. “A regional model would be good first step… We are looking into it,” Shahidi said. Should the group approve the idea, it could recommend it to ICAO, which sets guidelines for aviation crash investigations. <br/>
Airline passengers might soon have to leave their emotional support animals at home. A new rule proposed by the US DoT would permit airlines to stop accepting emotional support animals on planes, allowing only service dogs that are professionally trained to perform tasks or assist passengers with disabilities, including psychiatric disorders. Airlines have argued for years that the current rules typically requiring airlines to treat support animals as service animals—both of which fly free of charge—are too loose, leading many passengers to claim ordinary pets as support animals to avoid fees of US$125 or more for international flights. Carriers say that has forced them to accommodate a surge of untrained animals that have bitten passengers, scuffled with other pets or left messes. <br/>