Life is better without Boeing, airline executive says

Boeing’s ongoing struggles have disrupted airlines racing to replace aging fleets worldwide, but easyJet has avoided both those troubles and the engine issues plaguing some Airbus operators. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Chief Executive Johan Lundgren expressed thanks that he had Airbus planes with CFM International engines.

“The engine choices that we made and also going with Airbus is a better alternative than some of our competitors are having,” he said.

Rivals like the Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair and its U.S.-based peer Southwest Airlines have changed their guidance and otherwise publicly groused about their problems with Boeing’s manufacturing difficulties and delivery slowdowns. But some companies are also having trouble with their Airbus planes.

Before it filed for bankruptcy, Spirit scrounged together some $200 million in cash thanks to compensation from Airbus for capacity waylaid by its Pratt & Whitney engines. JetBlue Airways Chief Executive Joanna Geraghty has complained about ongoing issues with the Pratt & Whitney power units that have grounded swaths of her company’s fleets. At an aviation conference in September, she said that was especially frustrating because JetBlue went all-in on an Airbus-exclusive fleet.

“They’re great planes, we want to fly them,” she said at the Skift Global Forum travel industry conference.

Other airline executives, like United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby, have publicly called for a new competitor to displace the global Airbus-Boeing planemaking duopoly. Earlier this year, United froze pilot hiring and asked its on-staff pilots to consider taking some unpaid time off because it didn’t receive the Boeing planes it had been expecting them to fly.

“I think we need more competition in the aerospace sector,” Kirby said on The Air Show, an aviation podcast.