United CEO blames Boeing for Max 9 missteps, wants ‘faster’ fix

United Airlines Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Scott Kirby criticized Boeing Co. on Tuesday, saying he was disappointed with what he called the planemaker’s sluggish response to the grounding of Max 9 aircraft.

“I’m disappointed that the manufacturing challenges do keep happening at Boeing,” Kirby said in an interview Tuesday on CNBC. “They are taking action, I just want them to do it faster.”

His comments come after Bloomberg reported Kirby has vented his frustrations with Boeing’s management to colleagues and voiced concerns over the handling of the Max plane grounding. United has been forced to sideline dozens of 737 Max 9 aircraft after a Jan. 5 mid-air emergency on an Alaska Airlines flight.

The United CEO blamed a culture at Boeing that predates the era of current Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun — dating to the company’s 1997 merger with defense giant McDonnell Douglas.

“My own assessment is that this goes all the way back to the McDonnell Douglas merger and it started a changing culture,” he said. 

Inspections on Boeing 737-900ER aircraft, which the Federal Aviation Administration recommended because it shares a door plug design with the Max fleet, should be completed by Tuesday, Kirby said. 

Boeing is five years behind an original delivery time frame for its Max 10, which has yet to be certified, and that delay is prompting United to come up with an alternative strategy to fill the gap. 

“The Max 9 grounding is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back for us,” he said. “We’ll hope that Boeing gets it certified at some point, but we’re going to build an alternative plan that just doesn’t have the Max 10 in it.”