The global airline industry is facing a summer squeeze, with travel demand expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels while aircraft deliveries drop sharply due to production problems at Boeing and Airbus. Air carriers are spending billions on repairs to keep flying older, less fuel-efficient jets, and paying a premium to secure aircraft from lessors. But some carriers are still being forced to trim their schedules to cope with the lack of available planes. At the same time, the number of travelers globally is set to hit historic levels, with 4.7b people expected to travel in 2024 compared with 4.5b in 2019. "We can expect a strong performance from airlines throughout the summer with some particularly high airfare," said John Grant, senior analyst at travel data firm OAG. Last December, the IATA had predicted a 9% annual growth in global airline capacity this year. That estimate looks optimistic following Boeing's safety crisis. Passenger carriers will receive 19% fewer aircraft this year than they expected because of production issues at Boeing and Airbus, said Martha Neubauer, senior associate at AeroDynamic Advisory. U.S. carriers will receive 32% fewer aircraft than planned a year ago because several airlines depend on Boeing's 737 MAX planes, Neubauer said. Boeing's production has been curbed after a January mid-air panel blowout. Boeing is reeling from a sprawling crisis that erupted after the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines blowout. Regulators have put a cap on production of the 737 MAX, but the company is not hitting even that level.<br/>
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The FAA is investigating claims made by a Boeing engineer who says that sections of the fuselage of the 787 Dreamliner are improperly fastened together and could break apart mid-flight after thousands of trips. The engineer, Sam Salehpour, who worked on the plane, detailed his allegations in interviews with The New York Times and in documents sent to the FAA. A spokesman for the agency confirmed that it was investigating the allegations but declined to comment on them. Salehpour, who has worked at Boeing for more than a decade, said the problems stemmed from changes in how the enormous sections were fitted and fastened together in the assembly line. The plane’s fuselage comes in several pieces, all from different manufacturers, and they are not exactly the same shape where they fit together, he said. Boeing conceded those manufacturing changes were made, but a spokesman for the company, Paul Lewis, said there was “no impact on durability or safe longevity of the airframe.” Lewis said Boeing had done extensive testing on the Dreamliner and “determined that this is not an immediate safety of flight issue.” “Our engineers are completing complex analysis to determine if there may be a long-term fatigue concern for the fleet in any area of the airplane,” Lewis said. “This would not become an issue for the in-service fleet for many years to come, if ever, and we are not rushing the team so that we can ensure that analysis is comprehensive.” In a subsequent statement, Boeing said it was “fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner,” adding that “these claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft.” Salehpour’s allegations add another element to the intense scrutiny that Boeing has been facing since a door panel blew off a 737 Max jet during an Alaska Airlines flight in early January, raising questions about the company’s manufacturing practices. Since then, the plane maker has announced a leadership overhaul, and the Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation.<br/>
A Senate subcommittee has summoned Boeing CEO David Calhoun to testify about the company’s jetliners in an inquiry prompted by new safety-related charges from a whistleblower. The panel said it will hold a hearing next week featuring a Boeing quality engineer, Sam Salehpour, who is expected to detail safety concerns involving the manufacture and assembly of the 787 Dreamliner. The subcommittee said in a letter that those problems could create “potentially catastrophic safety risks.” Boeing would not say whether Calhoun plans to attend the April 17 hearing. In response to a query from The Associated Press, a spokesperson said only that the company is cooperating with the subcommittee’s inquiry and has “offered to provide documents, testimony and technical briefings.” The FAA has also been investigating Salehpour’s allegations since February, according to the subcommittee. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<br/>
US authorities are facing fresh pressure from families of the victims of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes to criminally prosecute the aerospace company following a January mid-air blowout that exposed ongoing safety issues.<br/>Victims' representatives meeting on Tuesday and later this month with US Justice Department officials are expected to say that Boeing violated a 2021 deal with prosecutors to overhaul its compliance program following crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. That settlement shielded Boeing from criminal prosecution. Justice Department officials are probing whether Boeing has complied with that 2021 agreement and are considering the Jan. 5 blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet as part of that review, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. Boeing in January 2021 agreed with the Justice Department to pay $2.5b to resolve a criminal investigation into the company's conduct surrounding the fatal crashes. The agreement included money to compensate victims' relatives and required Boeing to overhaul its compliance practices. The deal, known as a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), gave the U.S. planemaker an avenue to avoid being prosecuted on a charge of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Prosecutors agreed to ask a court to dismiss the fraud charge if they determined Boeing complied with the agreement over a three-year period. Families of the fatal crashes have criticized the agreement, arguing it failed to hold the company and executives accountable. Story has more.<br/>
Boeing airplane deliveries dropped in the first quarter to the lowest number since mid-2021 as the company faces increased scrutiny after a door plug blew out from one of its 737 Max 9 planes midair in January. The company handed over 83 planes in the three months ended March 31, most of them 737s, compared with 157 in the prior quarter and 130 planes in the year-earlier period. Solely in March, Boeing delivered 29 planes. Airbus said Tuesday that it delivered 142 planes in the first three months of the year, 63 of them in March. Boeing customers are still ordering new jets from the manufacturer, which along with Airbus dominates the large jetliner market. The company logged orders for 111 for new planes last month when stripping out two cancellations, 85 of them 737 Max aircraft for American Airlines, which the carrier announced in early March. The latest tally comes after the Jan. 5 accident on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 brought Boeing inches from a catastrophe. Federal accident investigators said the door plug was missing bolts that hold it in place. Since the accident, the Federal Aviation Administration has inspected Boeing’s 737 Max production and barred the plane maker from increasing output of the jets until it signs off on its quality control procedures. Boeing executives have said the company is slowing down its production to improve quality control and avoid so-called traveled work, when repairs or other tasks occur out of sequence. “We won’t rush or go too fast,” Boeing CFO Brian West said at a Bank of America conference last month. “In fact, we’re deliberately going to slow to get this right. And we are the ones who made the decision to constrain rates on the 737 program below 38 per month until we feel like we’re ready. And we’ll feel the impact of that over the next several months.” Aircraft delivery delays sparked criticism from the CEOs of some of Boeing’s biggest airline customers, and in its wake, CEO Dave Calhoun last month announced he will step down by year’s end. Boeing also replaced its board chair and the head of its commercial airplane unit.<br/>
Airbus jet deliveries rose 12% in the first quarter, the European planemaker said on Tuesday. Deliveries reached 142 aircraft, confirming a Reuters report on the quarterly total last week and leaving the France-based company ahead of US rival Boeing, which delivered 83 commercial airplanes during the same period. Airbus said it had won 170 new orders in the first quarter, with no cancellations. The tally includes an order for 33 wide-body planes from Korean Air but does not yet reflect an order from Japan Airlines announced on the same day in March. Boeing earlier reported 131 gross orders or a net total of 126 after cancellations. New business included an order from an unidentified customer for 10 long-haul 777-9 jets.<br/>