The Case for Believing in Boeing Right Now
Two plane crashes are taking a big toll on Boeing’s reputation and bottom line. But good companies learn from crises.
Boeing is too important to fail.
Photographer: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
Boeing Co. is in a heap of trouble right now — there’s no getting around it. The two deadly crashes of its new plane, the 737 Max, killing 346 people, have cost it an enormous amount of reputational capital, and will undoubtedly cost it a lot of money — in lawsuit settlements, in multi-million-dollar payments to airlines that have had to ground the plane, and quite possibly, in lost sales if customers conclude that Airbus SE makes safer airplanes.
Boeing appears to have built the plane too hastily, in a panicked response to the early success of Airbus’s new plane, the A320neo. The Federal Aviation Administration appears to have ceded too much authority to the company in certifying the plane’s safety.