Transcript: Can Boeing get back on track?

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Can Boeing get back on track?’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, January 9th and this is your FT News Briefing.

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Boeing is reeling after Friday’s mid-flight accident. Joe Biden is pushing Israel to get out of Gaza, and the Taliban is preventing Afghan women from accessing formal education, but that hasn’t stopped them from learning.

Andrew Jack
You’ve got some large, established organisations that have long been present in online learning, and they’re now providing access to many thousands of women.

Marc Filippino
I’m Marc Filippino and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Boeing is under pressure again, this time after a door of an Alaska Airlines plane blew out a few days ago. Similar planes, part of Boeing 737 Max series, have been grounded all over the world while they undergo inspections. Boeing shares fell 8 per cent yesterday. Here to talk to us about what this means for the aircraft manufacturer is the FT’s Claire Bushey. Hey, Claire.

Claire Bushey
Hey. How are you?

Marc Filippino
I’m doing all right. So get us up to speed. Do we know what caused the door to fly off the plane?

Claire Bushey
Well, we don’t know what has gone wrong. There’s kind of three buckets of what it could be. The first and worst bucket is that it could be a design or engineering flaw because that would mean it would be Boeing’s responsibility. And also it means that the flaw is likely to be replicated many, many more times within the fleet. But people are sort of not leaning towards that explanation. Bucket number two is manufacturing or some sort of quality control flaw. That would mean, you know, something went wrong in the making of the plane. And then it wasn’t caught by the quality inspectors who are supposed to catch that kind of thing. And then the third bucket is that maybe there was a problem with maintenance. And that would mean that maybe the problem was simply limited to that one Alaska Airlines plane.

Marc Filippino
Do we have a sense of which of these scenarios is most likely?

Claire Bushey
People are gravitating towards bucket number two because there have been problems with production in the aerospace industry generally since Covid. Covid ended up sending a lot of experienced workers home. They retired, they were laid off, and Spirit AeroSystems — which is a supplier to Boeing — they have had a couple production problems in 2023 and they were definitely sort of manufacturing problems. And so these kind of production struggles, as one analyst put it, they’ve contributed to the perception that Boeing is having problems building planes.

Marc Filippino
Claire, Boeing is just one of a handful of plane manufacturers around the world. I mean, when you’re flying, the plane that you’re getting on is either an Airbus or a Boeing, basically. So what might this latest incident mean? Big picture, not just for the company, for Boeing, but for the industry, too.

Claire Bushey
Well, for years now it has been a duopoly between Boeing and Airbus. But the 2018, 2019 Max crashes really gave Airbus an opportunity to surge ahead and to gain market share at Boeing’s expense. The two crashes killed a combined 346 people. And that’s just like a catastrophic loss of life. And they haven’t been able to recover since then. They keep trying to put this behind them. And if they continue to carry this baggage and if they aren’t able to claw back market share from Airbus, then you’re looking at a future where the aerospace industry really isn’t a duopoly anymore. And that, of course, confers all the pricing power the monopoly has. And Boeing is just sort of a very critical US manufacturer. They’re important to US GDP. They have a lot of highly skilled, highly paid jobs. And if they’re not able to pull it together, all of that is at risk.

Marc Filippino
Claire Bushey covers Boeing for the Financial Times. Thanks, Claire.

Claire Bushey
Thank you.

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Marc Filippino
US president Joe Biden is pushing Israel to “significantly get out” of Gaza. The president said this during a campaign stop in South Carolina yesterday. His comments come after Israel said that its military had successfully destroyed Hamas as a fighting force in northern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces is now turning its focus to dismantling Hamas in the central and southern part of the strip. Military analysts say that Israel has already moved into a less intense phase of the war. This phase will involve more targeted operations by smaller forces.

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More than 1mn girls in Afghanistan have been banned from getting an education since the Taliban retook control. The group has also restricted educational opportunities for women. But Afghans are finding a way to get past the bans through online courses. Joining me now to discuss is the FT’s Andrew Jack. Hey, Andrew.

Andrew Jack
Hi.

Marc Filippino
So tell me a little bit about the recent restrictions that the Taliban have put on education in Afghanistan.

Andrew Jack
Well, obviously, since the withdrawal of the US and other international forces in the middle of 2021, which left a lot of chaos, there was still hope that much of the progress that had been made in terms of policy, not least around women’s rights and access to education and health and so on, would remain in place. But unfortunately, pretty quickly, the Taliban decided that women should be banned from schools, particularly adolescents. And over time, their clampdown has increased. So most recently, they formally banned women from attending universities and higher education of any sort. But now, at least, we’re starting to see some signs of innovation, ways to try to get around those restrictions using technology.

Marc Filippino
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about some of the online study programs that are available to them. And who exactly is offering them?

Andrew Jack
Well, there’s a range of groups. A lot is being organised through charities, through networks of individuals who’ve come together. And then you’ve got some large, established organisations that have long been present in online learning, and they’re now providing access to many thousands of women and other Afghans registering for courses. And so seeking access, despite the formal ban or the impossibility of them attending in-person physical classes within the country.

Marc Filippino
Now, I can’t imagine that even these online courses are risk-free. What happens if these women or girls are caught trying to get any sort of education?

Andrew Jack
Well, clearly the official policy is this is absolutely not allowed. Of course, part of it relates to perhaps the idea of adolescent and older women mixing with men. It’s about, of course, the status of women and trying to downgrade it. And so clearly the official attitude is very negative. In practice, what we’ve seen is more clampdowns by the authorities on advocates and institutions and individuals who’ve been pushing to foster women’s education and other social policies that they claim are against Islamic law. And so, for example, one high-profile activist who is an advocate for women’s education was arrested and disappeared for many months before being ultimately released in Afghanistan last October.

Marc Filippino
Andrew, how do you view these digital platforms in the larger context? I mean, how much can it actually solve?

Andrew Jack
Well, there’s a few challenges, of course. I mean, first and foremost, digital access remains very limited in Afghanistan, as indeed in many other lower-income countries. So the number of people, particularly outside the large urban centres, who could get access to the web are quite restricted. Then, of course, there’s issues about what happens next, because clearly there’s risks about being identified and therefore being able to gather credits, to get a diploma, to have some sort of a qualification out of your online learning that you can then use to improve your careers or your livelihood. And of course, within Afghanistan, the chances remain extremely limited for women in particular, to be able to go on and work within the country or indeed be able to leave the country to find opportunities elsewhere. So lots of restrictions. But nonetheless, clearly it does provide an insight on to the wider world. And to some degree it’s an opportunity to learn skills that hopefully could have at least some benefits for those who are able to gain access.

Marc Filippino
Andrew Jack is the FT’s global education editor. Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew Jack
Thank you.

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Marc Filippino
You can read more on all these stories at ft.com for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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