French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he now avoids Boeing aircraft due to safety concerns.
“I now prefer flying in Airbus over Boeing – my family too, they care about me,” Le Maire said at the Europe 2024 conference in Berlin. Guillaume Faury, the chief executive officer of Airbus SE — Boeing’s lead competitor — was in the audience.
Faury distanced himself from Le Maire’s remarks, saying he was “not happy with the problems of my competitor,” adding: “Aviation attracts a lot of attention on safety. What I take is humility, not complacency.”
Safety concerns regarding Boeing’s aircraft have been growing after several high-profile accidents involving the company’s 737 MAX line. Following two fatal crashes and an episode of uncontrolled decompression in an airplane, the model was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for further inspections.
The FAA’s six-week audit of Boeing’s 737 production found “multiple instances” of failures to meet quality control requirements. The FAA failed Boeing on 33 of 89 product audits and recorded 97 instances of Boeing noncompliance. Spirit AeroSystems — which makes the 737 Max’s fuselage — failed seven of 13 product audits.
Earlier this month, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett — who raised safety concerns about Boeing production issues — was found dead from an allegedly self-inflicted gunshot wound. However, before his death, Barnett warned a friend that “if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.”
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