Boeing shares fall sharply as Air India crash spotlights series of previous accidents

Mint

2 days ago

On Monday, June 16, the biennial Paris Air Show begins at Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris. As the stage is set for the show and aircraft manufacturers fly in their latest products and set up stalls, Boeing shares saw a sharp dive of over 7 per cent in pre-opening. The shares nosedived after VT-ANB, the 13-year-old Dreamliner with Air India, went down in Ahmedabad from where it took off for a scheduled flight to London Gatwick. The aircraft was one of the 27 the airline has in its fleet, and the flight was a codeshare with equity partner Singapore Airlines. The flight, which departed from Ahmedabad at 1338 hrs, was carrying 242 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 787-8 aircraft. Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, one Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals, as per the airline, which it posted on social media. The aircraft was delivered to Air India in January 2014 and configured with 18 Business class and 238 economy class seats.
The loss of an aircraft, the first for an Indian airline after the Kozhikode crash in 2020 and that too involving a technologically advanced aircraft like the Dreamliner, has cast a shadow on the Paris Air Show and explains the dip in share price for Boeing in the pre-opening session. Paris Air Show is one of the major airshows where large orders are announced or signed. Both IndiGo and Air India signed their record-breaking orders at Paris in 2023, with Air India expected to add more planes to its order book next week, a possibility that may not happen because of the events in Ahmedabad.
The crash may be the first for a Dreamliner, but Boeing is in the news again. The airline faced two fatal crashes with the MAX 8 aircraft, one in Indonesia and one in Ethiopia, after which a global grounding took place. The MAX kept making news at periodic intervals for all the wrong reasons, until recently, the FAA and Boeing worked closely to ensure quality was delivered. As if the MAX crisis was behind it, a new one has crash-landed just days before the airshow. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner faced significant battery issues in 2013, leading to a worldwide grounding of the fleet. These problems stemmed from lithium-ion batteries used in the aircraft's auxiliary power unit (APU), which were prone to thermal runaway and fires. The issues ultimately resulted in the grounding of the Dreamliner fleet, with the FAA and NTSB investigating the design and manufacturing of the batteries. Air India had also grounded its planes and subsequently saw the changes done before flying them again. The aircraft has had no issues since then.
Boeing has a robust order book for the Dreamliner, including 20 from Air India, the first of which is due by end of this year. In less than 14 years, the 787 Dreamliner fleet has carried more than one billion passengers, faster than any other widebody jet in aviation history. The 787 has unlocked more than 425 new nonstop routes around the world, many of which were never served previously. Boeing has over 1,100 787s in service globally.
Not just Boeing, the fatal crash will cast a shadow on the airshow in Paris next week with muted celebrations for orders and possibly delaying orders from Air India, if at all they were going to place one and possibly other Indian carriers. The crash will be the talking point, especially against the backdrop of the world community being in Delhi early this month for the 81st IATA AGM, which was held in Delhi after a gap of over four decades and heard about the India growth story.
The investigations take time and the focus first is to get the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and send them for investigation which will give key answers. Boeing will be involved in this process as is the norm. Until then, at the Paris air show, questions will be asked about what led to the crash and it is too early to have definite answers.