The head of Emirates Airline has warned Boeing was in the “last chance saloon” as he prepared to send his own engineers to oversee the plane maker’s production lines after witnessing a long decline in its manufacturing performance.
Sir Tim Clark told the Financial Times he had seen a “progressive decline” in Boeing’s standards, which he put down to long-running management and governance mis-steps, including prioritising financial performance over engineering excellence.
Clark, who has held senior roles at Emirates since the 1980s and has been president since 2003, is one of the most high-profile figures in aviation. His comments add to the mounting problems for the US plane maker following the mid-flight blowout of a section of the fuselage on a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft last month.