Flight Attendants Question Safety of 737 MAX -- update

By Alison Sider

The union representing American Airlines Group Inc. flight attendants said it has lingering concerns about the safety of Boeing Co.'s 737 MAX following two days of congressional hearings on the development and certification of the plane.

"It is clear there were serious breakdowns in the supervision of the 737 MAX," Lori Bassani, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, wrote in a letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg dated Oct. 30. "We have fundamental questions about whether the FAA has the resources necessary for oversight moving forward."

The MAX was grounded globally in March following two fatal crashes within five months that killed 346 people. The letter from the flight attendant's union is the latest sign of fallout for Boeing after Mr. Muilenburg faced two days of sharp questions from lawmakers, including the release of new documents that provided a fuller picture of design errors that contributed to the two crashes.

American's 28,000 flight attendants will "refuse to walk onto a plane that may not be safe," Ms. Bassani wrote, adding that the union will evaluate information from American airlines, pilots, regulators, and Boeing to determine whether to work on the plane again.

A Boeing spokesman said Mr. Muilenberg has received the letter and would respond soon. The company has reached out to flight-attendant groups and will continue to do so, he said.

"We are committed to providing flight attendants, pilots and our airline customers the information they need so we can re-earn their trust and that of the traveling public that counts on them," the spokesman said.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents flight attendants at 20 airlines, including United Airlines Holdings Inc., also said the hearings raised fresh questions.

"We will not work the 737 MAX until and unless we have full assurance from regulators around the world, our colleagues in the flight deck, engineers, and our airlines that the 737 MAX is safe," she said. "This week took a step backward in this process, not forward."

With the timing of regulatory approval still unclear, U.S. airlines that fly the MAX have taken it out of their schedules until early next year.

Airlines have been counting on pilots and flight attendants to help restore passengers' confidence in the plane and have been working closely with unions on questions about training and other issues surrounding the plane's return.

But the crashes and Boeing's subsequent response have strained the company's relationships with airline employees. Pilots at airlines including American and Southwest Airlines Co. and have criticized Boeing for not initially providing enough information about the new flight-control system that has been implicated in both crashes. Southwest's pilots sued Boeing in October, alleging that the plane maker misled them about how different the MAX was from a previous model of the 737.

Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 31, 2019 19:29 ET (23:29 GMT)

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