The French planemaker is “not happy” with the plethora of problems facing its American rival, based on its chief financial officer.
“We are not satisfied with the problems our competitor is facing. “I think it’s not helpful for the industry, and if it’s not helpful for the industry, it’s not helpful for Airbus,” Thomas Toepfer said in an interview Thursday with CNBC’s Charlotte Reed.
“We think we have very good products. We saw this in the very good order reception in 2023. And this will continue in 2024.”
Boeing is under intense pressure after a series of costly and reputationally damaging incidents. A door plug on considered one of the 737 Max 9 planes exploded on January 5 during an Alaska Airlines flight, and the carrier is currently subject to a lawsuit and investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.
This followed two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving the best-selling 737 Max plane, which damaged public trust in the corporate and raised serious questions on its culture and quality control processes.
The fuselage plug area of Boeing 737-9 MAX Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which was forced to make an emergency landing as a result of a niche within the fuselage, was observed during an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Portland, Oregon, USA, on January 7, 2024.
NTSB | Via Reuters
Meanwhile, concerns have grown that planemakers are under an excessive amount of pressure to extend production speeds as airlines grapple with capability constraints.
Toepfer told CNBC: “The way I would look at it… it is a factor that makes us think even more. How can we be sure that things like this will never happen at Airbus?”
“We are obsessed with this, which is why we took a good closer take a look at our production processes. We have placed even greater emphasis on the long-term investments we make by way of products, but additionally technology. I feel it has served us thoroughly previously, we’re following this exact path.
Aviation executives – lots of whom have large, backlog orders from Boeing – have generally expressed their continued confidence in the corporate through the past six years of turmoil. However, a gaggle of airline CEOs recently requested a gathering with Boeing management to precise their concerns in regards to the Alaska Airlines fiasco and production problems, Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Michael O’Leary, the outspoken head of low-cost carrier Ryanair, sharply criticized Boeing’s handling of the 737 Max crisis and its management in an interview with Skift this week.
Like other airlines, Ryanair has included a highly efficient single-aisle jet in its fleet development and renewal strategy.
