The veteran president of Emirates Airline has blasted beleaguered aircraft manufacturer Boeing over continuing ‘quality control’ issues as accident investigators probe whether a manufacturing flaw was behind an emergency exit plug being blown out of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 on Friday evening.
Sir Tim Clark, who shelved plans to retire from the Dubai-based airline during the pandemic, described the rapid depressurization onboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 as “another manifestation” of the issues that have plagued Boeing for a number of years.
Investigators are yet to determine the cause of the accident, although the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) said a design flaw wasn’t likely to be the cause, raising the possibility that the plug on the brand-new airplane was either not installed properly or manufactured to spec.
“They’ve had quality control problems for a long time now, and this is just another manifestation of that,” Clark, who is a respected and highly influential figure throughout the aviation industry, told Bloomberg on Monday.
Despite the harsh words, Clark offered: “I think they’re getting their act together now, but this doesn’t help.”
Despite the latest criticism, Boeing won a big new order for new Boeing 777X and 787 Dreamliner aircraft during last year’s Dubai Air Show, which, at list value, could be worth as much as US $52 billion.
Boeing clinched the big win from rival aerospace giant Airbus because Clark remains unhappy with the performance of Rolls-Royce XWB-97 jet engines that power the European manufacturer’s flagship A350-1000 aircraft.
Airbus had been hoping to lock in a big new order from Emirates for A350-100 jets but only walked away from the biennial Dubai Air Show after Clark described the Rolls-Royce engines as ‘defective’, Airbus only managed to secure an order for 15 additional A350-900 to Emirates.
Despite showing much more love for Boeing in recent months, Clark, who drives many key long-term decisions at Emirates, has been highly critical of the Chicago-based company’s workmanship in recent years.
Of particular concern has been Boeing’s much-delayed 777X which won’t now start to be delivered until next year at the earliest due to major certification issues.
