Boeing’s crisis of confidence is spreading to the airlines that buy its jets.
Major carriers from United Airlines Holdings to Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Air Group gathered at an industry conference on Tuesday, and most of them had a similar story about how Boeing’s troubles are bleeding into their businesses. Most notably, airlines lack the aircraft they had previously planned on receiving in 2024 because Boeing has slowed output.
And the troubles run deeper than just this year. At the JPMorgan investor event, United Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby said he’d gone as far as telling Boeing to stop building 737 Max 10 jets for the carrier because the timeline for certification of the largest variant of the single-aisle jet has become so uncertain.