Alaska CEO sees 'significant improvement' at Boeing after door plug incident
Adds details, comments from interview in paragraphs 3-5 and 6-8
By David Shepardson
Sept 18 (Reuters) -Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said the airline has seen "significant improvement" at troubled planemaker Boeing in recent months after a door plug missing key bolts blew off one of the carrier's new 737 MAX 9 jets at 16,000 feet in January.
"We saw a lot of significant improvement in the last few months," Minicucci said in an interview, adding that he spoke recently to new Boeing BA.N CEO Kelly Ortberg and praised him as a seasoned aerospace veteran who "has identified the problems at Boeing that need to be fixed."
Minicucci added Boeing still has more to do to make quality and safety improvements.
"There's still a long road, and it's not a road that's going to be done in the next few months. This is a road that's several years in the making," Minicucci said. "We're not stopping our focus and attention on holding Boeing accountable to the highest levels of accountability and quality."
Alaska Airlines ALK.N, which is getting its 12th airplane in 2024 from Boeing this week, has stepped up oversight of new planes and has its own staff at the factory auditing production. Minicucci also said he does not expect to receive 737 MAX 10 airplanes until at least mid-2026. The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to certify either the MAX 7 or MAX 10 variants.
The MAX 7 certification has been delayed as the planemaker works to address an engine anti-ice system. Boeing, which has said the MAX 7 must be certified before it can get the larger 10 approved, has said it settled on a fix for the issue that could lead to overheating and potentially cause an engine failure.
Minicucci said he did not think a strike by about 30,000 Boeing machinists in Washington state and Oregon would have a significant impact on Alaska's operations unless it is "excessively long."
"It's nothing that we can't adjust by redeploying some capacity from one market to another," he said. Minicucci said that if the strike lasts longer than a couple weeks, "we're going to bring the Boeing team in and have them give us their assessment."
Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis
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