The FAA has opened a new investigation into Boeing after the plane maker told the regulator that it might have skipped required inspections involving the wings of some 787 Dreamliners. In a statement on Monday, the FAA said that it learned about the issue from Boeing last month. As part of its inquiry, the agency said it was looking into whether employees at the company may have falsified aircraft records. The FAA said that Boeing was reinspecting all Dreamliners still in production and that the company needed to create a plan to address aircraft already in service. “As the investigation continues, the FAA will take any necessary action — as always — to ensure the safety of the flying public,” the statement said. Boeing did not comment on the agency’s statement, but the company shared an email about the issue that an executive sent last week to employees in South Carolina, where it makes the Dreamliner. In that message, the executive said Boeing had determined that there was no immediate flight safety risk. The inquiry adds to the scrutiny that Boeing has faced since a door panel blew off a 737 Max while in flight in January, bruising the company’s reputation and drawing attention from federal regulators. The FAA began a separate investigation after that incident, which occurred during an Alaska Airlines flight, and the Justice Department opened a criminal inquiry. The FAA has also said that it is looking into claims by a Boeing whistle-blower who says the company has taken production shortcuts with the Dreamliner that could lead to the plane’s structure failing prematurely. The new inquiry regarding inspections is unrelated to the allegations by the whistle-blower, who testified at a Senate hearing last month. The issue that the FAA is investigating was first identified by a Boeing employee, according to the email sent last week. The author of the message, Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 program, said that an investigation into the employee’s concerns found that “several” workers had skipped required tests but recorded them as completed. Stocker said Boeing was taking “swift and serious” steps to address the workers’ conduct and had promptly informed the F.A.A. about its findings. He also praised the employee for raising the concern in the first place. “It’s critical that every one of us speak up when we see something that may not look right, or that needs attention,” he said.<br/>
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In the latest round of their decades-long battle for dominance in commercial aircraft, Europe’s Airbus established a clear sales lead over Boeing even before the American company encountered more fallout from manufacturing problems and ongoing safety concerns. Airbus has outpaced Boeing for five straight years in plane orders and deliveries, and just reported a 28% quarterly increase in net profit. It was already winning market share by beating Boeing to develop a line of fuel-efficient, mid-sized aircraft that are cheaper for airlines to fly. And now Boeing is facing a government-mandated production cap on its best-selling plane. Yet the European company is unlikely to extend its advantage in the Airbus-Boeing duopoly much further despite having customers clamoring for more commercial aircraft, according to aviation analysts. The reason: Airbus already is making planes as fast as it can and has a backlog of more than 8,600 orders to fill. Its ability to leverage Boeing’s troubles therefore is “very limited,” according to Jonathan Berger, managing director at Alton Aviation Consultancy. Between strained supply chains and the long lead times for a hugely complex and highly regulated product, a jetliner ordered from Airbus today may not arrive until the end of the decade. Boeing also has a huge order backlog for more than 5,660 commercial planes. The mismatch between the post-COVID demand for flights and the aircraft supply pipeline is bad news for travelers as well as airlines. “This has been an incredibly strong market recovery, and people need more jets than they’re getting,” said Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory. “And until they get those jets, you don’t have enough capacity. Guess what goes up? Ticket prices.” At the beginning of the year, Boeing seemed finally to be recovering from two crashes of Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Then, on Jan. 5, a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9, and the company has been reeling ever since.<br/>
Air Lease Corp said it is wrestling with delivery delays from planemakers Boeing and Airbus after reporting a lower-than-expected quarterly profit on Monday as it made higher interest payments on funds borrowed to finance aircraft purchases. Air Lease shares were down about 6% at $48.61 in after hours trading. Aircraft lessors are benefitting from higher rental revenues as airlines hunt for aircraft amid a shortage of commercial jets due to supply problems, slumping production of Boeing's 737 MAX and Pratt & Whitney GTF engine snags. Even with strong demand, delivery problems are likely to persist, with the U.S. planemaker wrestling with a crisis stemming from a January mid-air door panel blowout. "These imbalances are very likely to stay with us for at least three to four years in the future," Steven Udvar-Hazy, executive chairman of Air Lease Corp., told analysts. He said neither Boeing nor rival Airbus were able to deliver many of the new aircraft the company expected to take in early 2024. The aircraft they did deliver were all late, he added. The company expects around $1.5b worth of new aircraft deliveries for the second quarter. California-based Air Lease's interest payments rose 19.8%, to $181.6m in Q1r, as the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates high in a bid to tame inflation. As a result, profit per share was 87 cents, below analysts' average expectation of 91 cents, according to LSEG data. Air Lease's Q1 revenue rose 4.3% to $663.3m, but fell short of an expectation of $677.2m.<br/>