The “preventable incident” endangered scores of lives both on the plane itself and others flying Max 9 aircraft, the suit alleges.
Three passengers are suing Boeing and Alaska Airlines for $1 billion in damages in the wake of a door panel blowing out midair on their flight.
The suit, announced Feb. 23, accuses Boeing and Alaska Airlines of negligence for allegedly having ignored warning signs that could have prevented the Jan. 5 incident, which forced the plane pilots to make an emergency landing.
“This experience jeopardized the lives of the 174 passengers and six crew members that were on board,” a release announcing the suit states. “For those reasons, the lawsuit seeks substantial punitive damages … for what was a preventable incident.”
Feels like the airline industry is really feeling the crush of capitalism.
It’s just not something that can be operated like a fast food restaurant, but it’s clear this is what the ruling class wants.
Feels like the ruling class has lost control of the ship
It was always the creepy crab monster in the hold that ran the ship.
The FAA used to protect against Capitalism’s race to the bottom.
Not sure what’s changed recently with them so that these kind of things are happening now.
Deregulation, vastly more flights, and lower budgets.
Deregulation is easy to go read about but it had huge impacts on the airline industry and spawned the current race to the bottom.
In 1990 there were a little more than 18,000 flights per day in the US. In 2024 there are more than 45,000.
The FAA budget in 1990 was $2.5B which is $31B when adjusted for inflation. The current FAA budget is $20B.
So, the FAA has less authority, a budget that is 1/3 smaller, and is dealing with tripple the air traffic when compared to 1990.
The wealth class doesn’t care because they have their own personal planes they use instead of the plebian flying busses.
https://ycharts.com/companies/BA/stock_buyback paints a grim picture where all of the time and money that should have been going to safety and quality standards were going to stock price inflation from buybacks. 1 billion is not enough, it should be 10+ billion all invested into hiring and training FAA investigators and QC to meet those standards, and an anti trust suit to break up Boeing.