April 29 (Reuters) – Boeing Co said on Monday it did not “intentionally or otherwise” deactivate a safety alert for its angle-of-attack sensors on its 737 MAX aircraft, responding to reports the planemaker failed to tell Southwest Airlines Co and the U.S aviation regulator that the safety feature was deactivated before recent crashes.
“The disagree alert was tied or linked into the angle of attack indicator, which is an optional feature on the MAX. Unless an airline opted for the angle of attack indicator, the disagree alert was not operable,” Boeing said in a statement.
It said the disagree alert is not necessary for the safe operation of the airplane.
The company said following software modifications all new MAX aircraft will have an activated and operable disagree alert and an optional angle of attack indicator, while current MAX airplanes will have the ability to activate the disagree alert.
Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg was grilled at a press conference earlier on Monday, following two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX plane.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said on Monday she named four experts to a blue-ribbon committee to review the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) aircraft certification process after two deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes killed nearly 350 people.
Chao said she was naming NASA’s former aviation safety program director Amy Pritchett and Gretchen Haskins, chief executive of HeliOffshore Ltd, an international expert in aviation safety and a former U.S. Air Force officer.
She also named Kenneth Hylander, chief safety officer at Amtrak and a former senior safety executive at Delta and Northwest airlines, and J. David Grizzle, chairman of the board of Republic Airways and a former FAA chief counsel.
The committee is “specifically tasked to review the 737 MAX 800 certification process from 2012 to 2017, and recommend improvements to the certification process.”
U.S. lawmakers have criticized the FAA’s program that allows Boeing Co and other manufacturers to oversee the process that ensures air worthiness and other vital safety aspects of new aircraft.
Chao said last month the panel would be co-chaired by retired Air Force General Darren McDew, the former head of the U.S. Transportation Command, and Lee Moak, a former president of the Air Line Pilots Association.
Federal prosecutors, the Transportation Department’s inspector general and lawmakers are investigating the FAA’s certification of the 737 MAX 8 aircraft. A joint review by 10 governmental air regulators is also set to start April 29.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Brown)
FILE PHOTO: A United Express Embraer ERJ-175LR airplane is pictured at Vancouver’s international airport in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Ben Nelms
(Reuters) – United Airlines on Tuesday reported a better-than-expected jump in first-quarter profit as it sold more tickets and cut costs, standing by its 2019 profit target even as its Boeing Co 737 MAX jets remain grounded.
Chicago-based United has removed its 14 MAX aircraft, which were suspended worldwide in March following two fatal crashes, from its flying schedule through early July, eating into U.S. airlines’ peak summer travel season.
Still, the airline’s parent United Continental Holdings Inc reiterated its estimate for adjusted earnings of $10 to $12 per share in 2019, and said its strategy for scheduling more flights out of its hubs was continuing to win customers.
Adjusted earnings per share rose to $1.15 in the first quarter, ending March 31, from 49 cents a year earlier, overcoming a U.S. government shutdown and severe winter weather earlier this year that curtailed flights.
Wall Street analysts on average had forecast 95 cents per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Its shares rose 2.8 percent in after-hours trading.
United has largely avoided cancelling MAX flights by servicing those routes with larger aircraft, but President Scott Kirby warned last week that the strategy could not last indefinitely.
The airline, which has been adding seats at a faster pace than rivals, trimmed its 2019 capacity growth target to between 4 percent and 5 percent from 4 percent to 6 percent previously, but did not say whether the decision reflected the effect of the grounded MAX.
Total operating revenue rose 7.1 percent to $8.73 billion in the quarter, while closely watched revenue per available seat mile rose 1.1 percent.
In the second quarter, United said it expects unit revenue to rise between 0.5 percent and 2.5 percent while unit costs, which fell 1.8 percent in the first quarter, were expected to be flat to 1 percent higher.
The No. 3 U.S. carrier is the first of three U.S. 737 MAX operators to report first-quarter results. Southwest Airlines Co and American Airlines Group Inc, which have removed their MAX jets from schedules into August, report on April 25 and April 26 respectively.
A Federal Aviation Administration review board said on Tuesday that it found a Boeing software update for the MAX to be “operationally suitable,” suggesting the lengthy regulatory process to get the planes back in the air was underway.
Rival Delta Air Lines Inc, which does not operate the 737 MAX, lifted its 2019 revenue forecast last week after reporting better-than-expected quarterly profit.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Additional reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Rigby)
FILE PHOTO: Cessna employee works on an engine of a Cessna business jet at the assembly line in their manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kansas March 12, 2013. REUTERS/Jeff Tuttle
(Reuters) – Cessna business jet maker Textron Inc reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday, benefiting from robust aircraft deliveries, sending its share up 1.6 percent in early trading.
Business jet demand has been growing steadily in the United States, the world’s biggest market, on the back of an expanding economy and rising corporate profits.
Textron said it delivered 44 jets in the first quarter ended March 30, up from 36 last year. Commercial turboprop deliveries rose to 44 aircraft from 29 last year.
“We think this quarter has pretty much ticked all the boxes for Textron. Aviation growth has continued, with a positive book to bill in the quarter,” Vertical Research Partners analyst Robert Stallard said.
Textron has faced delays in final certification of its newest super mid-size Longitude jet, which is expected to contribute a ‘big chunk’ to the company’s revenue growth in 2019.
Analysts have warned that the certification delays from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration due to partial government shutdown followed by the regulator’s intense focus on re-certifying Boeing Co’s 737 MAX aircraft might impact sales growth at the company in the short.
Though the aviation business was among the drivers for a profit beat, Textron’s revenue missed Wall Street estimates, hurt by lower sales in its systems unit, which makes tactical armored patrol vehicles.
Textron re-affirmed its full-year profit outlook range of $3.55 to $3.75 per share.
Sales in the company’s aviation business, its biggest, rose 12.3 percent to $1.13 billion in the first quarter, while sales in the systems unit fell more than 20 percent to $307 million.
The company’s net income fell to $179 million in the quarter ended March 30 from $189 million a year earlier.
Textron earned 76 cents per share, above analysts’ average estimate of 68 cents, according to Refinitiv data.
Textron’s revenue fell 5.7 percent to $3.11 billion, below analysts’ estimates of $3.17 billion.
(Reporting by Divya R and Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the debut of the Boeing South Carolina Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner in North Charleston, South Carolina, U.S., February 17, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday urged Boeing Co to
fix and “rebrand” its 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes, as
regulators worldwide continue to work with the planemaker to review its
grounded best-selling aircraft.
The
Federal Aviation Administration has been meeting major airlines and
convened a joint review with aviation regulators from other countries,
while federal prosecutors, the U.S. Department of Transportation
inspector general’s office and a blue-ribbon panel are reviewing the
plane’s certification.
In
an early-morning post on Twitter, Trump, who owned the Trump Shuttle
airline from 1989 to 1992 and is an aviation enthusiast, weighed in with
his own advice.
“What
do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!),
but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some
additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No
product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?”
Trump tweeted.
The
plane’s grounding has also threatened the U.S. summer travel season,
with some airlines removing the 737 from their schedules through August.
Trump
issued the tweet as Boeing tries to restore trust in its
fastest-selling jet, the main source of profits and cash at the
Chicago-based planemaker which has won some 5,000 orders or around seven
years of production for the aircraft.
Chief
Executive Dennis Muilenburg has apologised on behalf of Boeing for
lives lost in two recent accidents and promised that it would address
the risk that flight software meant to prevent the plane stalling could
be activated by wrong data.
Boeing
has also held dozens of briefings and simulator sessions for airline
executives and pilots and held worldwide meetings with airline branding
and communications staff.
Pilots
are expected to play a major role in regaining public confidence in the
aircraft, but Trump’s tweet marks the first time the brand underpinning
Boeing profits in coming years has been thrown into question at a high
level.
Brand
Finance, a UK-based consultancy that tracks the value of global brands,
rejected the idea that Boeing should abandon the MAX brand but said its
corporate reputation was in the firing line.
“This
has without a doubt damaged Boeing’s reputation and we foresee a dent
to the (Boeing) brand’s value at over $12 billion (£9 billion),” Chief
Executive David Haigh said by email when asked about Trump’s comments.
“This
is a temporary blip in the long run for Boeing,” he said, adding Toyota
and others had recovered from similar high-profile crises without a
drastic rebranding exercise.
Brand
Finance had previously estimated the damage to the value of Boeing’s
reputation at $7.5 billion immediately after the March 10 crash of an
Ethiopian Airlines jetliner, the second fatal accident involving the 737
MAX in five months.
Boeing
has the world’s most valuable aerospace brand, having seen the value of
its overall corporate image rise by 61 percent to $32 billion in 2018,
according to the same branding firm.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Tim Hepher; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Toby Chopra)
(Reuters)
– Virgin Atlantic on Wednesday reported an annual pretax loss for the
second consecutive year, hit by a shaky economy, the higher costs of
fuel generated by a weaker British pound and problems with Rolls Royce’s
Trent engines.
The
airline, the 1980s brainchild of British billionaire Richard Branson,
fell back into the red in 2017 after three years of profits, as
competition intensified and the weakening of the pound added to already
rising fuel costs.
Best
known in Europe for the trans-Atlantic planes it flies with Air
France-KLM and Delta, Virgin said its loss before tax and exceptional
items was 26.1 million pounds ($34.12 million) for the year ended Dec.
31, compared to a loss of 49 million pounds in 2017.
Total
revenue rose 5.8 percent to 2.78 billion pounds, as passenger numbers
grew just under 5 percent to 5.4 million and revenue per customer rose
1.7 percent.
The
company said performance had suffered from economic uncertainty and the
weaker pound – which increases costs because fuel is priced in dollars –
as well as the well-documented problems of the Trent 1000 engines used
on its Boeing 787 jets.
“While
a loss is disappointing, our performance has improved in 2018 despite
challenging economic conditions and put us on a trajectory for growth
and return to profitability,” Chief Executive Officer Shai Weiss said in
a statement.
Rolls-Royce
on Wednesday agreed to an early inspection of some Trent 1000 TEN
engines by regulatory authorities, a week after Singapore Airlines
grounded two Boeing 787-10 jets fitted with the units.
British
Airways owner IAG in February chose Boeing 777-9s, rather than a
competing package from Airbus in part powered by Rolls, underlining the
risks to airlines from the engine issues.
Since
then the industry has been thrown into chaos by the grounding of
Boeing’s new 737 MAX planes after a second fatal crash within six
months.
The
pound fell 5.6 percent against the U.S. dollar, in 2018 as Britain
contended with the political and economic uncertainty generated by its
negotiations on leaving the European Union.
Finance
chief Tom Mackay said that while economic factors would continue to
challenge the carrier in the year ahead, Virgin Atlantic was in a strong
cash position.
The
results are the company’s first since its acquisition of troubled
regional airline Flybe for $2.8 million earlier this year, in a joint
bid with Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital.
($1 = 0.7649 pounds)
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
(Reuters) – Air Canada said on Tuesday it would delay the launch of certain seasonal flights this spring, as the carrier wrestles with the challenge of servicing routes previously flown by its grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
Canada’s largest carrier said it would put off the launch of at least five seasonal routes, including delaying its Vancouver to Boston service to June 16 from June 1.
Montreal-based Air Canada said a previously-announced halting of flights from two Eastern Canadian cities to London’s Heathrow airport would now remain suspended until May 31.
Air Canada, which previously suspended its 2019 financial forecasts, has removed 24 MAX jets from its flight schedule until July 1, following grounding of the Boeing jets after two recent crashes involving the model.
The global grounding, following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March, has left U.S. and Canadian airlines with the logistical challenge of replacing the popular roughly 175-seat MAX on certain routes, at a time of rising passenger demand.
The Canadian carrier has been flying alternative planes or consolidating flights into larger jets that were previous flown more frequently on smaller aircraft.
Air Canada has also said it is speeding up the integration of four Airbus A321 aircraft it acquired in late December from Iceland’s cash-strapped WOW air.
Air Canada is “accommodating as best as they can,” said AltaCorp analyst Chris Murray. “At the same time, there is still some uncertainty about when the MAX grounding notice is going to be lifted.”
On Monday, Boeing said it planned to submit a proposed software enhancement package for the grounded 737 MAX in “the coming weeks” after the company had previously said it planned to deliver the fix for government approval by last week.
Anglo-German tour operator TUI said last week that its profit would fall by at least 200 million euros ($223.96 million) this year due to the cost of substituting for the MAX planes, along with loss of business and lower fuel efficiency from the replacement aircraft.
(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Bill Berkrot)
FILE PHOTO: An aircraft of Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA departs from Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s largest airline, Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes, will not cancel its orders of Boeing Co’s 737 MAX plane, the model which was involved in two fatal crashes, newspaper Valor Economico reported Gol’s chief executive as saying on Tuesday.
“We will not cancel our orders,” CEO Paulo Kakinoff said. “The 737 MAX is probably the best airplane ever made.”
Gol is going through a significant fleet transformation and has bet heavily on the Boeing 737 MAX, with over 100 planes scheduled to be delivered in the next few years.
The airline has so far received seven aircraft, which it grounded after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed in March, the second accident involving that plane model in a span of five months.
Kakinoff added that he thinks it is possible that the 737 MAX planes will fly again by July. That decision is in the hands of regulators around the world.
Gol has flown Boeing planes exclusively since its founding and is the U.S. planemaker’s largest client in Latin America.
(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Susan Thomas)
FILE
PHOTO: The Airbus logo is pictured at Airbus headquarters in Blagnac
near Toulouse, France, March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
PARIS (Reuters) – Airbus shares rose on Tuesday after the European planemaker won a deal worth tens of billions of dollars to sell 300 aircraft to China.
Airbus was up 2.7 percent by 1208 GMT, with the stock having risen nearly 40 percent so far in 2019.
French
officials said the deal was worth some 30 billion euros (25.6 billion
pounds) at catalogue prices. Planemakers usually grant significant
discounts.
The
Chinese order was announced late on Monday, coinciding with a visit to
Europe by Chinese President Xi Jinping and matching a China record held
by U.S. rival Boeing.
Investment bank Citigroup kept its “buy” rating on Airbus.
“We
do not have details of the delivery schedule of this order, but China
has been taking about 20-25 percent of Airbus production per year and
given the A320 family is sold out at announced production rates out to
2024/25, we believe this increases the probability of Airbus moving to a
production rate of 70 per month,” wrote Citigroup.
That positive view was echoed by Morgan Stanley, which kept an “overweight” rating on Airbus shares.
“Clearly
finalisation of this order is a positive for Airbus, and continues to
underpin strong order book coverage and rising production rates in
narrowbody,” Morgan Stanley said.
The
larger-than-expected order, which matches an order for 300 Boeing
planes when U.S. Donald Trump visited Beijing in 2017, follows a
year-long vacuum of purchases in which China failed to place significant
orders amid global trade tensions.
It
also comes as the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX has left uncertainty
over Boeing’s immediate hopes for a major jet order as the result of any
warming of U.S.-China trade ties.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Leigh Thomas and Jane Merriman)
OTTAWA
(Reuters) – As Boeing Co and global airlines work to restore public
confidence in the 737 MAX after two deadly crashes, they will have a
play book they can use.
This
is not the first time that Boeing has faced a crisis after launching a
new plane with innovative technology. In 1965, three Boeing 727-100
passenger jets crashed in less than three months in the United States
while coming into land, killing a total of 131 people.
Like
the 737 MAX, the three-engined 727 was billed as one of the most
advanced aircraft of its time. Boeing introduced the 727 in 1964 and
portrayed it as a more efficient alternative to the standard four-engine
jets of the day, with new features designed to make the 727 easier to
operate from short airfields.
The
727’s wing flap system, which provides extra lift at low speeds, was
unusually large and sophisticated, which allowed the plane to descend
more quickly than other rivals and avoid buildings and other obstacles
close to runways.
Investigators
looking into the crashes discovered that some pilots did not fully
understand the flap system and were therefore allowing the planes to
descend at too great a speed.
“There was nothing wrong with the airplane… (but) if you didn’t really pay a lot of attention to it you could build up an immense sink rate,” said Bill Waldock, a professor of safety science at the U.S-based Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He uses the 727 accidents as part of a case study.
Aviation
authorities ordered more training for pilots but allowed the planes to
keep flying despite calls from some politicians to ground them.
Boeing made some modifications to the flight manual and to the procedures for flying the airplane on final approach.
In the case of the 737 MAX 8, Boeing is working on software and training updates. [L3N21C0FP]
Alan
Hoffman, a U.S. aviation historian and retired transportation lawyer
who has researched the 727 accidents, said given the publicity over the
recent crashes, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration would only
allow the 737 MAX 8 planes to fly again if the regulator is convinced
the fixes worked.
“The
airplane will go back into service and unless something else crops up
there will be no further problems and a year from now this will all be a
dim distant memory,” he predicted by phone from St Louis, Missouri.
Boeing was not immediately available for comment.
In
contrast to the swift grounding of the 737 MAX 8 after the recent
second accident, just two days after the third fatal 727 crash, in
November 1965, the Civil Aeronautics Board said there was no reason to
ground the plane.
“It
passed very rigid certification tests … before it was put into
service and nothing has turned up in our investigation to cause us to
doubt its stability,” the board said.
Those
words did not immediately reassure many travellers. Indeed, passengers
had started to boycott the airliner after the crashes began.
“For
a period of six months or so a lot of 727s were flying with half full
cabins,” Waldock said by phone from Prescott, Arizona. Still, the 727
crisis passed.
The
plane eventually became one of Boeing’s best sellers and was in
widespread use for another 30 years. By 2003, virtually all had been
retired as airlines moved away from the 727’s loud and thirsty engines.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Joe White and Cynthia Osterman)
