Boeing door blowout crisis hitting suppliers, airlines and passengers

After a door panel on an Alaska Airlines-operated Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet blew off midair in January, Anneke Palmerton learned the carrier had canceled her flight to Orlando as well. It did not surprise her as Alaska had decided to ground its fleet of MAX 9 aircraft after the Jan. 5 accident. Little did she know the incident would snowball, impacting air service in her city of Bellingham, Washington and upending her winter plans to fly Southwest Airlines. The door blowout happened aboard only one flight. But fallout from the ensuing safety crisis has inflated costs for those reliant on Boeing. Interviews with airline executives, union leaders, pilots, suppliers, passengers and government officials, show how the incident is rippling through the trillion-dollar global aviation industry. Boeing's resulting slump in MAX deliveries has hit earnings at airlines like Southwest and some suppliers who planned to equip new planes. It has inconvenienced and stranded passengers as airlines fly fewer routes, and has led to a slowdown in pilot hiring, interviews show. "We thought...there would be a little bit of bumps," said Palmerton, a notary and marriage officiant in Bellingham. "Never in a million years (did we think) it would lead to Southwest," Palmerton said about the airline's decision to cut service to her local airport. Boeing is the largest U.S. exporter and employs nearly 150,000 people domestically. It supports millions more through a supply chain that includes thousands of businesses big and small around the world.<br/>