
Many with an association to or background with the Seattle, Washington area will hold a complicated relationship with the many technologically advantageous corporations and innovations the region has produced. Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon are among the various conglomerates to maintain their global headquarters in the Seattle metropolitan area and continue to provide thousands of employment and economic development opportunities—despite an increasing disregard for labour rights and the crisis in housing prices, their estate purchases have caused. Out of these software and service companies, perhaps none has as inextricable a link to Seattle as Boeing, the aircraft manufacturing founded in 1916, which turned the city into a landmark of aviation and encouraged global investment for over a century. Despite this, the devastating failure of Boeing’s 787 aircraft has resulted in hundreds of deaths. As cost-cutting decisions have coincided with a dangerous decline in manufacturing quality, it is necessary to reevaluate the pride Seattleites and Americans hold in the country’s sole commercial aeroplane manufacturer.
Speaking at a hearing in front of the United States Congress in March, former Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun apologised for the 346 deaths of passengers who fatally rode in the company’s 737 MAX jets in October 2018 and March 2019. He was fiercely grilled by Senate members of the Homeland Security Committee regarding the incidents occurring in Indonesia and Ethiopia, respectively. Following an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), it was found that engineers within Boeing were aware that a “faulty control system drove the nose [of the aircraft] down under certain circumstances,” as pointed out by Senator Richard Blumenthal during Calhoun’s testimony. Despite this, the 737 project was allowed to proceed, leading to the two fatal crashes.
The globally publicised failures of Boeing’s initiatives led to increased scrutiny of the company; however, a 40.6% market share in all of aeroplane manufacturing (according to the Michigan Journal of Economics) maintains the company’s reputation as “too big to fail.” This mentality supported the U.S. government’s $25 billion investment in commercial airlines following the COVID pandemic, leaving room for further devastating incidents following the 2018 and 2019 crashes. In March 2024, an exit door blew completely off a 737 plane on a flight from Vancouver, Canada, to Portland, Oregon, as global media outlets again highlighted that Boeing had failed 33 of the 89 safety audits conducted by the FAA.
Criticism was again launched this past month. On December 29th, a Jeju Air flight crashed into Muan International Airport when the landing gear failed on yet another 737 aircraft. While it is inevitable that Boeing alone cannot consistently maintain the universal safety of all aircraft, the company’s consistent failure to increase safety regulations should cause the U.S. government to increase its investigations into the company.
This concept of Boeing as “too big to fail” has not only allowed the billions of dollars in federal investment to come with no strings attached but has allowed the company to escape any substantial federal prosecution. Families of the loved ones lost on board the 2018 and 2019 crashes accused Boeing of “the deadliest corporate crime in US history”—and yet the company was still allowed to pay only $487 million in fines as it pleaded guilty to defrauding the FAA. The same families demanded $24.8 billion in their legal case against Boeing.
Since 1997, Boeing has operated a monopoly in U.S. commercial aircraft manufacturing, as it was allowed to acquire its chief American competitor, McDonnell Douglas. As the Congress and FAA publicly condemn Boeing, it has mostly escaped punishment by the Justice Department. The ability of Boeing to maintain its sacred position has only been substantively rejected by Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who has consistently highlighted the company’s strategy of claiming itself as a “national champion” that must be allowed to succeed on its own. Khan has refuted this by citing the various devastating crashes and audit failures. In saying that Boeing is “the single best example of why a national champion strategy can be catastrophic”, Khan has blamed her predecessors and government colleagues for allowing Boeing’s monopolisation in the 1990s to come to fruition.
Khan’s argument is compelling, followed by an allusion to the status of Chinese airline manufacturers in China and their integration into the country’s market. If safety audits are to continue to be an issue for Boeing, hundreds of lives will continue to be put at an avoidable risk. Khan explained that antitrust enforcement against an investigation into Boeing’s monopoly in U.S. airline manufacturing must take place if the United States is to be kept in the lead in the industry. This sentiment is irrefutable, as it is only through greater federal scrutiny that Boeing can be kept on its toes, and avoidable crashes might not be allowed to happen. For too long, an ill-perceived pride of the company by politicians and business leaders has let Boeing prioritise profit over the safety of passengers. Without greater regulation by the government of Boeing, as advocated by Khan, there is no way for its failures in safety to be addressed and its “national champion” status to be taken away.
By Benjamin Carter, Features Contributor