Longstanding "Quality Control Problems": Emirates Slams Boeing

Emirates President Sir Tim Clark has slammed Boeing this week stating that the incident with the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 is a reflection of longstanding “quality control problems”.

Clark is not someone to shy away from giving criticism to a manufacturer when things go wrong or are delayed, as we saw at the Dubai Air Show in regards to the Airbus A350-1000 as well as even further afield regarding delays to the 777X program.

Without further ado, let’s get into it…

Longstanding “Quality Control Problems”: Emirates Slams Boeing…

The words from Emirates President Sir Tim Clark on Boeing came from an interview conducted by the Financial Times, where he said the following:

“They’ve had quality control problems for a long time now, and this is just another manifestation of that”.

“I think they’re getting their act together now, but this doesn’t help”.

Following January 8th’s disclosures by United Airlines regarding the discovery of loose hardware during inspections of grounded Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft, Alaska Airlines has similarly reported findings of loose hardware during their maintenance actions.

Inspections of the subject aircraft have continued since the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency Airworthiness Directive (AD) temporary grounding for affected aircraft, after an aft cabin door plug assembly detached in flight resulting in an explosive decompression.

In the latest progress update, Alaska airlines has confirmed that it has subsequently detected items of loose hardware during the course of the ongoing inspections.

In the statement, the airline advised: “As our maintenance technicians began preparing our 737-9 MAX fleet for inspections, they accessed the area in question. Initial reports from our technicians indicate some loose hardware was visible on some aircraft.”

Yesterday, United Airlines confirmed that they had discovered installation issues with the door plugs, citing “bolts that needed additional tightening.”