United Airlines’ Tolerance for Defective Planes and Late Deliveries is Maxing Out

United Airlines, one of the world’s largest operators of Boeing aircraft, is pondering its future with the troubled planemaker.
The airline’s CEO, Scott Kirby, in an interview on Tuesday with CNBC, referenced the recent grounding of the 737 Max 9 that took place after a door plug blew out in midair, and said he is “… disappointed that the manufacturing challenges do keep happening at Boeing. This isn’t new,” he emphasized. “The Max 9 grounding is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back for us.”
As of January 2024, United has a fleet that is comprised of 944 mainline aircraft, making it the third-largest commercial airline fleet in the world, after Delta Air Lines, the second largest, and American Airlines, which has the world’s largest fleet with 965 jets.
United operates a mix of Airbus and Boeing narrow-body and Boeing wide-body aircraft.  In its narrow-body fleet it currently has 174 Airbus A320-family jetliners, 388 Boeing 737-family planes, and 61 Boeing 757 jets.  The wide-body fleet is comprised of 53 Boeing 767s, 76 Boeing 777s, and 150 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
What United doesn’t have in its fleet are the 100 Boeing 737 Max 10 aircraft it ordered, converting part of its 737 Max 9 order to the stretched version of the aircraft.
The 737 Max 10 program is roughly five years behind schedule. It is currently awaiting certification: Test flights were approved by the Federal Aviation Administration late last year.
Meanwhile, Kirby doesn’t believe the Max 10 will be delivered anytime soon and is growing impatient with its largest aircraft supplier.
“We’ve grown increasingly to believe that best case [for the Max 10] keeps getting pushed further and further [out],” Kirby said in the course of the interview. As a result, United will have to “build a plan that doesn’t have the Max 10 in [the fleet].”
More significantly, Kirby said that there is really only one alternative.
“Obviously [there is] only one other manufacturer that’s really an option for us,” referencing Airbus and its A321neo narrow-body jets.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)