🤯 What The Hell Is Going On At Boeing?!

Hello there,

As you may have seen, there was no weekly briefing last week.

Sorry, not sorry.

Life has gotten in the way but it’s not the end of the world.

Nevertheless, here we go with this week’s spicy briefing with some topics that will hopefully be worthy of your attention.

This week, you can read about:
🤯 Two Boeing whistleblowers are dead but more whistleblowers appear
🛄 Virtual interlining reaches a whole new level
🫠 Australia’s Bonza goes bust with its doomed strategy

This briefing is a 7-min read.

Before we dive in, subscribe to get a piece of The Departure Times in your inbox every week.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORY
The Boeing-saga: A Second Whistleblower Is Dead, Another One Spoke Out. When & Where Does It End?

It’s certainly not a golden era for Boeing. Controversies are hitting the company, causing much bigger issues than what a bird strike causes to an aircraft.

Two Boeing whistleblowers died within two months. In March, John Barnett, 62, committed suicide around the days he was undergoing several rounds of deposition regarding his whistleblower complaint.

Barnett worked at Boeing in quality control for 32 years and spent 7 years at the manufacturer’s South Carolina plant where he experienced cultural flaws and allegedly FAA regulation violations that could lead to disastrous safety features. This forced him to file a whistleblower complaint.

According to reports, he previously told his family that if he died, it definitely wouldn’t be from suicide.

Joshua Dean, 45, worked as a quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems, one of Boeing’s suppliers of several aircraft parts, including the fuselage. In 2023, Dean filed a formal complaint to the FAA alleging “serious and gross misconduct” related to the 737 MAX production line. Later that year, he was fired by Spirit.

On April 25, Dean died after a sudden and severe infection. He reportedly was in good health before but went to hospital 2 weeks before his death and from that point, his health deteriorated brutally.

The online communities exploded with various conspiracy theories, claiming that this could not be a coincidence. Whether it’s true or not, that’s not the point. Being a whistleblower comes with massive stress that is beyond imaginable.

And these two men are not the only ones who spoke up against Boeing’s cultural and quality flaws.

Recently, another ex-Spirit AeroSystems employee, Santiago Paredes, says that he found up to 200 defects on parts being readied for delivery to Boeing.

Paredes told the BBC that during his 12 years at Spirit, he found “a lot of missing fasteners, a lot of bent parts, sometimes even missing parts.” Of course, Spirit rejects these allegations while Boeing declined to comment.

And there are even more whistleblowers who are currently testifying against Boeing. So there are regulatory and criminal investigations against Boeing and these allegations in the United States.

Can Boeing Be Steered Back To The Right Direction?

The question is whether those will conclude with tough and effective measures that will ensure flight safety and proper regulation to steer Boeing back in the right direction.

Let’s say that we trust the US regulatory and criminal bodies. Let’s say that after the two Boeing 737 Max crashes, one mid-air 737 Max door plug incident, and several whistleblower testimonies, Boeing will finally be forced to change courses.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will step down by the end of 2024. It could be considered as one step forward towards a better culture at Boeing.

But I have some skepticism. If you recall the story of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, you may know that no significant changes were in place against those big banks that had a crucial role in the subprime loan bubble.

This reminds me of the ending scene from The Big Short when they already knew no real justice would be served and no one would be taken accountable for. Except for one unlucky banker who went to jail.

Would something similar be coming in this Boeing-saga? In the end, we are talking about a company that dominates the commercial aircraft market hand-in-hand with Airbus and Boeing has no place to fail as commercial air travel depends on them heavily.

No one wants them to fail. That’s not the way to make justice. The industry and the public just want justice, to take those people accountable for the disasters, accidents, lost lives, toxic work environments, safety violations, and more. Do we need more accidents and deaths to make it better?

Boeing should be an engineering-centric aircraft manufacturer again, instead of a finance-centric one. The ghost of McDonnell Douglas should be killed once and for all.

NEWS BRIEFS
Emirates Announced The First Destinations Served By Its Upcoming Airbus A350

Emirates will start operating the Airbus A350 in September and they already announced the first destinations served by its new aircraft type. The inaugural services will be in the Gulf region, followed by West Asia and Europe.

• On September 15, Emirates will enter the A350 in service on one of its Bahrain flights, initially serving only one of its daily flights. From November 1, they will increase the service to two daily flights operated by the new aircraft type

• On September 16, Kuwait will also welcome the A350 on the daily flights

• From October 27, the new type will join both the Mumbai and Ahmedabad routes

• From November 4, Edinburgh returns to the Emirates network with the introduction of the A350 on this route

• On December 1, the Dubai-based carrier will start its A350 operations to Bologna, Lyon, and Muscat

• Lastly, Sri Lanka’s Colombo will also welcome the first Emirates A350 on January 1, 2025, as the fourth daily service will be served by the new aircraft type

The airline will announce more destinations in the following months. According to its press release, the first 10 Airbus A350 aircraft will arrive in Dubai by March 31, 2025.

These aircraft will be featured by a three-class interior with 32 Business Class, 21 Premium Economy, and 269 Economy Class seats. Emirates has 65 Airbus A350-900 aircraft on order. 

Source: Emirates

Airsiders Implemented The First-Ever Virtual Interline Check-Thru Solution At Düsseldorf Airport

Virtual interlining has been a booming trend in the past decade and it seems like that it finally reached a new level by tackling the issues of smooth self-connect baggage transfer.

Airsiders, a Berlin-based travel tech company announced its milestone of implementing the first check-thru solution at Düsseldorf Airport.

Their solution connects with the airlines’ DCS (Departure Control System), PSS (Passenger Service System) as well as the airports’ BHS (Baggage Handling System) to enable the data exchange between the different parties in a standardized format. This is crucial for overcoming the challenges of interlining between full-service and low-cost carriers. 

Their LinkedIn announcement also showcases how the solution works in practice as they transfer the first bag at Düsseldorf Airport. As per the announcement, they will soon introduce the solution online for their initial launch airline partners which means that passengers can start self-connecting with checked-through bags soon. 

Airsiders was founded in 2020 and is part of the BEUMER Group which supplies software and hardware solutions for over 100 airports. 

It’s not a big surprise that this German travel tech company brings this innovation to the market, as their team does not only have the expertise from their parent company but also several senior experts from airlines like easyJet and even from Kiwi.com that got known in the 2010s as the OTA and travel tech startup pioneering virtual interlining. 

Source: LinkedIn

Australian LCC Bonza Suspended Operations And Its Future Isn’t Bright

The Australian low-cost carrier Bonza suspended operations on April 30, 2024, and all aircraft have been grounded since then as the airline went into administration.

The airline started its scheduled service only 15 months ago, in January 2023. 777 Partners, a U.S. investment firm with a limited aviation background, backed Bonza. But seemingly, it wasn’t enough.

The airline operated with four aircraft across 21 destinations but it is tough to stay alive and succeed in the Australian market, especially as a low-cost carrier.

The country doesn’t have that population density as within Europe or even in the United States and that doesn’t favor start-up airlines like Bonza. The airline also implemented a risky app-only booking policy that gained limited traction.

But where did it go wrong? One explanation is around the fleet strategy. Bonza’s founder, Tim Jordan, a former Virgin Australia executive, created a business plan to connect those Australian cities with 72-seater ATR 72s.

He couldn’t attract investors except 777 Partners who already had a 25% stake in Canada’s Flair Airlines. While the investment firm got onboard, Jordan had to compromise his proposed fleet strategy and agree on taking the 186-seater Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in the fleet. Bigger aircraft, more seats to fill, bigger chance to fail.

And it did fail. But is there a way out?

Bonza’s administrators are now eagerly trying to do so. According to the latest reports, administrators are in discussion with at least 20 parties interested in saving the airline.

The first creditor’s meeting was held yesterday and more will come in the next weeks.

Perhaps it’s not over yet, although things don’t seem to favor Bonza. If some miracle will save them, Bonza may need a huge strategy change to operate sustainably and survive.

Or is the Australian market just doomed for low-cost domestic flights?!

FAVORITE PIECES THIS WEEK
My weekly “Inflight Food for Thought”

🛬 One Article: Oliver Ranson is one of the rockstars of airline revenue management. He has a newsletter Airline Revenue Economics on Substack and did a fantastic analysis of certain airlines’ turnaround times at Cape Town. The question he raised was: why do some aircraft stay so long at CPT? And could they do it more efficiently? Read his piece, it’s so worth it!

🚽 Another Article: Edward Russell wrote a great piece on why airport toilets are becoming a huge deal when it comes to passenger satisfaction. The answer may be obvious but Russell’s article is worth a read!

📍 One Video: We certainly know tons of airport codes but do we know the story of those airport codes? Codes like JFK, FRA, or even CPT may be obvious but what about the ones like YYZ? Watch this video to learn something today.

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT OF THE WEEK
Now That’s What We Call A Hard Landing

A Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 suffered a rough landing in Los Angeles, as seen in the following video.

The airline confirmed that the aircraft was on a training flight from Frankfurt to LAX with 326 passengers and 19 crew so they could all feel the vibes of this “tough-down”. (Sorry for the pun)

After that hard landing, the crew had to perform a go-around and landed on the second attempt.

The aircraft seemingly didn’t suffer any major damage as it could fly back to Frankfurt where it went through another inspection and Lufthansa confirmed that no further damage was discovered.

Praise the technology that holds that aircraft together. There were certainly no quality issues there…

Would you have wanted to experience that landing? 😛 

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