Page 22 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2013 Online Magazine

OPINION

YOU SAY I SAY

Early this year, regulators around the world grounded Boeing’s

787 Dreamliner after a series of problems raised concern about
the plane’s safety, and with each day the planes languish on the
ground, the manufacturer’s costs are growing by the millions. In
late February, Boeing submitted a proposed fix for the problems
with the lithium-ion batteries used in the Dreamliner. However,

though details of the fix have not been released at the time of
writing, critics are saying the problem might not be as easy to
solve as Boeing seems to think.

“It looks like an unfortunate situation for Boeing. It looks like
there is not going to be a quick solution, and that we are not
looking at days of grounding but possibly months. So far, at least,
it appears not to have been a bad batch of batteries, which would
have been the best of all possible worlds for Boeing.”

– Mary Schiavo, former Inspector General of the US Department of Transportation

“[The mooted fix for the batteries] is not an interim solution.
This is a permanent solution. We are very hopeful that we
will get the aircraft back in the air very soon … This solution
takes into account any possible event that might occur. We
see nothing in the technology that would tell us it’s not the
appropriate thing to do.”
– Ray Conner, Boeing CEO

“It’s a bit tone deaf to propose containment and management
when the political winds are favoring an elimination of the risk …
They need to be out there talking about a bigger solution beyond
mere containment because the political winds and public opinion
are not going to favour a solution that’s focused on fire and
smoke management.”
– Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst with Teal Group

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22 ASIAN AIRLINES & AIRPORTS MARCH / APRIL 2013 WWW.ASIANAIRLINES-AIRPORTS.COM