Flydubai CEO Urges Boeing To Take Immediate Action On 737 MAX Deliveries (2024)

It is only the second day of the 2024 Farnborough International Airshow, but we are already reading press releases about Boeing beating Airbus, and airlines are lining up to kick tires, sign letters of intent, or maybe even place firm orders for aircraft that may not be delivered for years.

Holding OEMs to account

It does seem incongruous that airlines would be placing orders when the two main OEMs have thousands of aircraft in backlog, and they can only make around 100 a month between them. Despite all the rhetoric, they seem incapable of reliably living up to their delivery promises, yet the orders keep rolling in.

Photo: Boeing

Perhaps before signing on the dotted line, airline bosses should pick up the phone and call Ghaith Al Ghaith, the CEO of Middle Eastern carrier flydubai. Yesterday, the airline issued a statement calling Boeing out for not meeting its delivery obligations and severely impacting flydubai's expansion plans and financial performance.

According to the airline, the unpredictability of Boeing's delivery schedules over the past few years has put significant pressure on flydubai. The carrier also blames Boeing for hindering its ability to plan for growth, capture the strong demand for travel after the pandemic, and continually changing delivery schedules, including this year.

This year, flydubai expected Boeing to meet its commitment to deliver 14 new 737 MAX aircraft, but it has been advised that no new aircraft will join the fleet for the remainder of 2024. Ongoing missed commitments have seen fewer aircraft being delivered every year for the past three years and the jets received in the first half of this year were from a backlog of previous years.

Back in the real world

Ghaith Al Ghaith said the airline is extremely disappointed to learn that Boeing will not be able to fulfill its commitment to deliver more aircraft for the remainder of the year, and the "short-noticed and frequent revisions" have hindered growth plans and resulted in significant disruptions to published schedules.

With an all-Boeing fleet of 88 aircraft and another 125 on order, flydubai relies heavily on the US planemaker to meet its promises and deliver the aircraft the airline needs to meet growing demand. The current fleet includes 29 737-800s, 56 737 MAX 8s and three 737 MAX 9s, and with no more to be delivered this year its expansion plans are under threat.

Photo:Markus Mainka/Shutterstock

With six new routes to be launched over the coming months, this lack of aircraft means flydubai needs to review and possibly adjust its schedules. To limit the damage from the missed 737 deliveries, flydubai has extended the leases on some aircraft due to be returned to lessors and tuned to wet lease operators during peak periods, thereby incurring further costs.

The airline is also investing in an extensive retrofit program for its 737-800s to maintain the cabin experience across the fleet in the absence of new 737 MAXs joining the fleet for the rest of the year. Since its launch in 2009, flydubai has built a network of more than 125 destinations in 58 countries and carried more than 100 million passengers.

Perhaps it's time for a bit more reality at these airshows and some honest assessment of the way forward, particularly as backlogs keep growing and aircraft production shows no sign of keeping pace. How many other airlines out there are being let down by manufacturers when aviation is booming and new generation aircraft and engines are needed to even get close to the 2030 sustainability targets?