‘The straw that broke the camel’s back’: United CEO’s frustration with Boeing’s problems

United Airlines, one of the biggest buyers of Boeing jets, is losing patience with the troubled aircraft maker. “I’m disappointed that… this keeps happening at Boeing. This isn’t new,” said Scott Kirby, CEO of United, in an interview Tuesday on CNBC. “We need Boeing to succeed. But they’ve been having these consistent manufacturing challenges. They need to take action here.” Kirby made his comments after the airline warned investors that it will report a larger-than-expected loss in the first three months of this year because of the grounding of all 737 Max 9 jets after a door plug blew off on an Alaska Air flight on January 5, leaving a massive hole in the side of the plane. The plane landed without any serious injuries, but the FAA ordered the grounding and additional inspections of the more than 200 jets of that model worldwide. United said it now expects its fleet of Boeing Max 9 jets to remain grounded through the end of this month, and that the company will report a Q1 loss in the range of $116m to $262m. United has 79 of the Max 9s, more than any other airline, and had originally scheduled nearly 8,000 flights with the plane for this month before the incident, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. “I think the Max 9 grounding is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back for us,” said Kirby. “We’re going to build a plan that doesn’t have the Max 10 in it.” United has firm orders for 277 of the 737 Max 10, and options to buy an additional 200, and so if the airline were to pull out of those orders, it would be a massive blow for Boeing’s efforts to bring that plane to market. And in a call with investors later in the day, Kirby said that the airline is not quite canceling the orders that it has for the Max 10, but it doesn’t anticipate it’ll be receiving the jets, either.<br/>