Boeing's embarrassing 737 Max disaster could hit entire US economy, aviation expert says

• Boeing's recent plane fiasco could affect the entire economy, Boyd International CEO Mike Boyd said.
• That's because airlines have huge orders of Boeing planes, which could be delayed this year.

Boeing's 737 Max 9 fiasco could impact the entire US economy, according to Boyd International president Mike Boyd.

In an interview with Yahoo! Finance, the aviation expert pointed to the January 5 incident on an Alaska Airlines flight, during which the door blew out of the 737 Max 9 aircraft. The plane landed safely and there were no fatalities, but the event sparked chaos in airline stocks and resulted in the grounding of all 737 Max 9 planes.

Inspected Max 9 jets have been given the green light to resume flying, but safety concerns linger around Boeing's planes, which could potentially come at a huge price to airlines as they deal with delays of 737 aircraft already on order, Boyd said.

"They're going to be materially delayed. They're out of the program for the coming year. That's going to be a big hit for them because they don't have anything to replace those," Boyd said. "We're going to be looking at a very bumpy year because these airlines, a number of them, aren't going to have enough airplanes to put into the sky.

Those flight disruptions could affect travel to a number of large cities like Chicago and Seattle, but are also likely to affect companies and suppliers looking to ship materials by air, he said.

"The fallout from the Alaska incident...could have effects on not just Alaska and United, but on dozens of communities across the nation," Boyd wrote in a note published on January 8, pointing to the disruptive effects of the groundings and the redirecting of fleets to adjust.

"What Boeing has done, which I think is totally incompetent with this, is going to hurt the entire economy," Boyd said in the interview.

Some of Boeing's largest customers, like United Airlines, will likely be looking for other aircraft manufacturers, Boyd predicted. United CEO Scott Kirby said this week that the door incident and subsequent grounding of Max 9 planes was the "straw that broke the camel's back." He said the airline is making plans for a future without the Max 10, which he said is years behind delivery schedule.

Boeing's stock, meanwhile, is down 20% year-to-date.

"When you have this number of your customers ticked off, yeah, that's incompetent," Boyd said. "I'm not just really confident with some of the responses Calhoun has made, very honestly," he said, referring to Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun.

"We have let down our airline customers and are deeply sorry for the significant disruption to them, their employees and their passengers," Boeing Commercial Airlines CEO Stan Deal said in an emailed statement. He added that the company has built a "comprehensive plan" to resume flying its aircraft safely.

Over a hundred 737 Max 9 planes were grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration this month, sparking a wave of flight cancellations and an investigation that found many 737 Max planes had loose bolts.

It's not the first time Boeing's 737 Max fleet has had issues. In 2019, two Boeing 737 Max planes crashed, killing nearly 350 people.