DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — One of Boeing’s biggest customers has issued a call to action to its new management team, expressing frustration over the safety crisis facing the US plane maker and subsequent delays in order deliveries.
“We’re not really happy with what’s happening, we always really wanted to see this aircraft enter the fleet when it was promised to us — and there’s a delay, it’s not just about us,” Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president and CEO of of Dubai’s flagship airline Emirates, told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on Tuesday at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
With 245 passenger planes and five 778 freighters on order, Emirates is Boeing’s largest customer for wide-body aircraft. However, the manufacturer’s aircraft deliveries fell in the first quarter of 2024 to the lowest number since mid-2021 as the company faces increased scrutiny after a door plug from one of its 737 Max 9 planes came off the air in January.
Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-31H(ER) takes off from Los Angeles International Airport on January 13, 2021.
Aaronp / Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images
The company delivered 83 planes in the quarter to March 31 – most of them narrow-body 737s – compared with 157 in the previous quarter and 130 in the year-earlier period.
Al Maktoum, who is at the helm of the world’s largest long-haul airline and helped launch it in 1985, echoed the sentiments of many other airline CEOs regarding expectations for Boeing.
“I think they need to apply a lot of pressure to make sure they deliver to the customer what they promised,” he said.
Asked if he had a message for the plane maker, Al Maktoum said: “I always say, you know, put your foot down and just do it. And I think they can do it.”
CNBC has reached out to Boeing for comment.
The president did not indicate that Emirates would cancel the Boeing orders or transfer them to its French rival, Airbus.
“No, no — I won’t be able to say exactly what we’re planning,” he replied when asked about the possibility of such a move. “But I think you see that we are refurbishing a large number of aircraft within the existing fleet … And there will be no shortage within Dubai’s capacity.”
It said the expansion of some of the airline’s existing fleet, including the mammoth double-decker Airbus A380s, is helping to provide sufficient passenger capacity.
The fuselage plug area of Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX Flight 1282, which was forced to make an emergency landing with a gap in the fuselage, is seen during its investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Portland, Oregon, USA January 7, 2024.
NTSB | Via Reuters
Boeing’s newly appointed new management team is now tasked with navigating the company’s worst crisis since 2018-2019, during which two of its new 737 Max jets crashed within six months, killing 346 people.
After the Alaska Airlines door exploded in January, the Six-week FAA audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems “found numerous instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements,” the FAA said in March. Spirit AeroSystems builds Boeing Max fuselages
“The FAA found noncompliance issues in Boeing’s manufacturing process control, parts handling and storage, and product control,” it said. The regulatory agency said it informed Boeing leadership that it “needs to address the audit findings as part of its comprehensive corrective action plan to correct systemic quality control issues” and address the “safety culture.”
In an earlier statement cited by CNBC, a Boeing spokesperson said in response to the FAA’s findings that the company continues to “implement immediate changes and develop a comprehensive action plan to enhance safety and quality.”
The company’s website says it continues to support the US NTSB and FAA investigations into the January 5 accident.”
— The CNBC Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.