No Delays In Plane Deliveries To India Due To MAX 9 Issues: Boeing

Boeing expects no meaningful delays of plane deliveries to India because of the MAX 9 issues even as it intensifies quality investigation of its 737 jets production programme, reported Reuters quoting a top company executive on Friday.

Earlier this week, the US-based plane maker said that an outside party would be brought in to examine its production practices, and it would also check the work of the firm that supplies and installs the parts involved in the accident.

Last week, the US regulator extended the grounding of 737 Max's with identical fuselage panels.

The US aerospace giant will also focus on the quality of aircraft over numbers in India, Darren Hulst, Boeing's vice president for commercial marketing, said at the "Wings India" air show in the southern city of Hyderabad.

Scrutiny of Boeing has been renewed after the blowout on the Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to California, which forced an emergency landing but resulted in no serious injuries. Following this, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporarily grounded 171 aircraft for safety checks.

While Hulst says he does not see any meaningful delays in deliveries as of now, he did not provide clarity on any potential delays in the long term.

According to the report, Indian commercial airlines have not ordered the MAX 9 variant of the Boeing 737. The country's low-cost airline Akasa Air has ordered 226 Boeing 737 planes, including the MAX 10 and MAX 8-200 versions. Meanwhile, Air India has 220 planes on order from Boeing, including 190 MAX jets.

"Indian low-cost carriers continue to stimulate demand and connect emerging regions with low fares, holding nearly a 90 percent share of all domestic seats in the region. This reflects the rapid pace of the region's recovery and economic activity, as traffic and capacity now exceed pre-pandemic levels," said Hulst.

Boeing has named Kirkland H. Donald as the independent adviser to spearhead a detailed quality review of its quality management system for commercial airplanes.

The US-based planemaker has been struggling to restore confidence after crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving a different plane in the 737 Max group killed 346 people.