Escalating beyond harsh words, Norwegian filed a lawsuit against Boeing on Monday alleging “gross negligence, fraud and breach of contract.”
Lawsuit Details: Norwegian Sues Boeing
Norwegian recently cancelled orders for 97 aircrafts, a mix of 92 Boeing 737 MAX and five 787 Dreamliners, at a list price of nearly $13 billion dollars. The lawsuit, filed in a federal district court in Illinois, alleges “gross negligence, fraud and breach of contract.”
“Instead of delivering what they promised, Boeing has deliberately misled and omitted information, shown gross negligence and clumsy production, and made aircraft with significantly impaired value and utility, which in the case of the MAX aircraft had tragic and fatal consequences.”
Norwegian is seeking a refund of its deposit, damages, additional compensation for the what it calls shoddy and “defective” aircraft, and legal fees. In addition to the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX, Norwegian’s 787s have encountered multiple problems including battery and engine issues. These have forced Norwegian to ground aircraft, disrupt schedules, and pay pricey fees to wet lease other aircraft.
The complaint alleges a conspiracy of poor workmanship, faulting the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for also failing to do its duty:
“Boeing exerted relentless pressure on its engineers from the start of the program to prioritize quantity over quality, proven they used ‘jedi tricks’ to get the FAA to approve the aircraft’s design based on statements from its own employees, and systematically cut corners along the way a very flawed design process that made a plane full of errors.”
While Norwegian has declined to comment on the lawsuit, Boeing issued a short but diplomatic response to E24, an online business newspaper:
“Norwegian Air Shuttle is a long-standing Boeing customer. As with many other players going through a challenging time, we are working to find the way forward.”
CONCLUSION
Expect a string of similar lawsuits from airlines around the world. As the pandemic has destroyed demand to the point in which new aircraft no longer fit the business plan, other airlines will seize upon Boeing’s shortcomings to try to wiggle away from contractual commitments. In the case of Norwegian, however, the problems with both the 737 MAX and 787 were well-documented and can hardly be blamed on COVID-19.
Owh, please. You made sound as if airlines using the downtime in pandemic to file a suit instead of paying penalties of cancelling orders. In reality, it all begins from faulty production of MAX8, which was approved as safe to fly by US body namely FAA.
You want to spin the facts that Boeing dig their own grave and should not be liable for their wrongdoings?
Nice try, same old excuses.
I partly agree with Matthew in that I suspect that if the travel crisis hadn’t occurred, that the airline would have used the 737 Max’s after recertification.
Boeing had a contractual and ethical obligation to its customers, employees and passengers for that matter, to put safety first instead of quick profits and CEO bonuses. They failed miserably.
I can sympathize with Boeing for insisting that airlines who were going to take delivery of the jet after repairs live up to their side of the bargain, but… not much.
Considering the circumstances, one wonders if the anti-trust system shouldn’t kick in and split Boeing up again: Undo the disastrous McDonnell Douglas merger and let that company do what they do best: Make military aircraft. Split Boeing civilian aircraft into two different companies to create competition. Fire the board and penalize them all for negligence and seize the bonuses from the previous two CEO’s.
Boeing is a national disgrace.
I understand why Norwegian is mad at Boeing for the MAXes, but the 787s? Battery issues and engine issues were the only two issues that have proven themselves. However, the battery issue has been solved years ago, in fact before the Airbus A350 even entered into service with Qatar Airways. Granted, I have heard of whistleblowings against Charleston, but the problems described by whistleblowings haven’t shown themselves yet. So that leaves me with only the engine issue left to talk about. The engines were made and designed by Rolls Royce, therefore Rolls Royce must take responsibility for the engines since Boeing has no control over whether those engines will get fixed. I get that Norwegian may have paid Boeing for the installment of engines into the airframe, but that’s like pointing out that the MAX victims paid the airlines and not Boeing to fly in a MAX. It has been established a couple years ago that the engine issue is cause by Rolls Royce design and if it was an airframe issue, GEnx users like United, American, Westjet, Eva Air, Air Canada, Air France-KLM, etc would have grounded their 787s in 2019 as well.