Your Weekend Reading: A Bad Week for Spirit and Boeing

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s plane breakdown as he sought to leave Davos this week was perhaps a fitting emblem for the dramas rippling across the aviation industry. The skies are stormy for the plane’s maker—Boeing—as well as commercial carrier Spirit Airlines. Shares of the latter dropped (then pared some losses) after a federal judge blocked JetBlue Airways’ proposed $3.8 billion acquisition, saying the combination would stifle competition and raise fares for consumers. The Biden administration had argued the merger would eliminate a key incentive for bigger airlines to offer budget-friendly fares to weary American passengers. The ruling represented a major win for the government’s antitrust enforcers, who have taken a more aggressive approach to airline mergers. Afterwards, Spirit remained defiant and both airlines appealed. On track to lose money for seven straight years with a heavy debt load and diminished prospects in the low-cost travel market, Spirit downplayed speculation that it’s planning to restructure under bankruptcy court protection.

Then there’s Boeing. Blinken’s 737 had been deemed unsafe to fly out of Switzerland, a glitch that came at a difficult time for the embattled aircraft manufacturer. Boeing had many of its 737 Max 9 aircraft grounded following a midair blowout of a door plug on an Alaska Airlines flight this month. Passengers are suing both Alaska and Boeing, and the latter also faces an investigation by the US Federal Aviation Administration. It’s the latest in a string of reputational, manufacturing and engineering setbacks for Boeing and especially the 737 Max. Today, Boeing’s name and that of the troubled model are linked to some of the worst aircraft safety and design failures in recent aviation history. Some 346 people were killed in the Boeing 737 Max crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 in late 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 fewer than five months later. The company once enjoyed a sterling reputation for safety and reliability, but it has increasingly focused on pleasing shareholders.