Boeing arrives at Paris Air Show as Air India crash questions linger

PARIS — Every summer, the titans of aerospace head to Europe to showcase products, tout big investments and salute their industry. Alternating each year between the outskirts of London and Paris, the air show is part celebration and part exposition. 

Boeing executives, for the first time in a long while, were prepared to join in that hopefulness. The company, under a new CEO who had already begun to gain the confidence of customers and Wall Street, was generating optimism. 

Then, on Thursday, a Boeing 787 crashed, raising the specter of fresh problems for Boeing and altering the message it planned to send. 

The Air India 787, built more than a decade ago in Everett, went down shortly after taking off from an airport in Ahmedabad, India. The Dreamliner crashed into a medical school hostel in the northwestern Indian city of 8 million, killing 241 of the 242 people aboard the plane and dozens on the ground. It is likely the deadliest aviation accident in a decade.

By Friday, Boeing executives had canceled their plans to attend the Paris Air Show. General Electric, which built the engines that powered the 787 that crashed, postponed events.

Air India, the airline operating the London-bound flight, began inspecting its fleet of 787 planes equipped with GE engines, following an order from the Indian aviation regulator. By Saturday, it had cleared nine planes to continue operating, with 24 left to examine.

Grappling with tragedy

The tragedy changed the trajectory of aviation’s marquee event, set to begin Monday, for Boeing. 

Having rested at the edge of disaster for half a decade, Boeing was expecting to attend the show with its new, well-regarded CEO as the public face of the company’s recovery and the support of renewed confidence from customers and investors, buoyed by continuous improvement rates for its popular 737 MAX. 

Instead, Boeing will again keep a low profile as it navigates turmoil with one of its planes at the center. At last year’s Farnborough Air Show near London, Boeing was still rocked by reputational and financial fallout after a panel flew off a 737 MAX in January 2024. 

It’s also the second time an air show that had been expected to mark Boeing’s recovery has swiftly changed tone. Before the panel blowout, industry insiders anticipated 2024 would be the year Boeing emerged from the crisis that followed two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, disasters largely caused by Boeing mistakes.

The tragedy Thursday immediately put Boeing’s safety record at issue again, though it is too soon to know if manufacturing or mechanical errors played any role in the crash of a nearly 12-year-old aircraft. A 787 Dreamliner, Boeing’s smaller widebody plane, had never been involved in a fatal accident before the Air India crash.

The show goes on

Though the Air India crash will cast a long shadow over a normally celebratory event, the aerospace industry largely stuck to its plans for the Paris Air Show. 

Industry executives use air shows to publicize significant investments and innovations, sometimes unveiling entirely new planes and flying the latest jet over the skies of Le Bourget, France, or Farnborough.

This year’s Paris Air Show was already bound to be more subdued than years past. 

Leading up to it, aerospace analysts expected airlines to still announce big orders (though maybe not as many “megaorders”). Manufacturers will still promote product updates (but supply chain bottlenecks will limit how much they can actually build), and plucky startups will display futuristic flying taxis (which have yet to take off.)

The industry overall is stuck in uncertainty. 

Boeing, before the Air India crash Thursday, has faced regulatory, production and safety hurdles since the two fatal MAX crashes six years ago. Supply chain constraints have slowed production rates for both Boeing and its European rival Airbus since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, President Donald Trump introduced a new layer of uncertainty to the equation: tariffs. 

Though paused, the import taxes Trump announced in April threaten to upend an industry that relies on companies around the globe and has historically been exempt from tariffs.

Washington state is sending its largest contingent of companies ever, said Joe Nguyen, the director of Washington’s Department of Commerce. With 78 people traveling across the country and across the Atlantic, Nguyen said the state hopes to send a message: No matter what happens in D.C., Washington state is open for business. 

The aerospace industry “has always been an important part of our ecosystem,” Nguyen said. “We want to make sure that continues to be the case.”

Muddling through tariffs

As American companies and elected officials arrive in France, the United States and Europe find themselves increasingly at odds. The European Union is considering retaliatory tariffs on American imports, in response to Trump’s trade war.

Richard Aboulafia, managing director of aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, expects airlines will announce fewer “megaorders” than in years past. Some airlines are waiting to see how the tariffs play out and are reluctant to pay an extra tax. 

Others may wait to announce orders during a state visit to curry favor with the U.S. president, as Qatar Airways did when it finalized a deal for 150 Boeing planes during Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East. 

At the same time, Aboulafia expects to see a hint of nationalism at the air show, with companies announcing investments in their home countries. 

Depending on where they want to align themselves, companies may make pointed investments with U.S.-based companies, or shift away from the United States. China is reportedly considering an order for hundreds of Airbus planes.

On the other side, Boeing could see some benefit from the tariffs, said George Ferguson, a Bloomberg Intelligence aerospace analyst. 

If Trump perceives a trade imbalance, where the U.S. is buying more goods from a country than it is exporting there, a quick fix for the foreign country is to make a big purchase from an American company. Boeing is poised to be that company, Ferguson said. 

During Trump’s first term, Airbus avoided some tariffs by leaning into the fact that it has a manufacturing plant in Mobile, Ala. It’s not clear if that tack would work this time around.

With so much uncertainty about what’s to come, Aboulafia said, all the industry can do is “muddle on.”

Supply chain constraints

Both Boeing and Airbus have faced parts shortages that are hampering production rates of new airplanes. 

Demand for air travel bounced back quickly after the pandemic. The supply chain did not, and that crunch is still on. 

Boeing predicts the market for airliners will increase another 45% from its prepandemic peak. New demand would require delivery — from all airplane manufacturers, not just Boeing — of 43,600 planes in the next 20 years, growing the fleet from 27,150 in 2024. Of those new deliveries, 21,100 planes would replace aging aircraft and 22,500 would accommodate growth in the industry.

“From an industry standpoint, we’re no longer in recovery mode,” Boeing’s Darren Hulst, vice president of commercial marketing, told reporters at a Tuesday briefing before the air show.

The challenge, Hulst said, is capacity. 

“New aircraft deliveries haven’t been able to keep up,” he continued. “Supply chains have proved to be more challenging than resuming the demand, which was remarkably resilient following the end of the pandemic.” 

Most recently, the bottlenecks are in castings and forgings, two processes used to shape aircraft parts, as well as engines, analysts said. The industry is waiting for engine makers to debut newer, more efficient machines, technology that will be crucial to reducing carbon emissions. 

Those supply chain shortages are part of the reason Airbus isn’t so worried about tariffs, executive Antonio Da Costa told reporters at a briefing.

“During the period we’re seeing, let’s call it turbulence, we are fully contracted,” he said, meaning its order book is full and airlines are eager to accept the long-awaited planes. 

Airbus, Boeing and other manufacturers, including China’s own venture, are “delivering what we can deliver,” Da Costa said.

Christian Scherer, head of commercial planes for Airbus, told reporters gathered in France on Friday that the supply chain “overall, has improved or is improving.” About 98% of Airbus’ suppliers are able to keep up with what the company needs.

“We’re not out of the woods,” he said, “but it is significantly better.” 

Investigation rolls ahead

What the Air India Flight 171 crash means for Boeing, GE and aviation in general will come down to what investigators discover in the days and weeks to come.

The London-bound 787 crashed less than a minute after takeoff.

Authorities from India, the U.K. and U.S. are investigating the crash. It’s too soon to know what caused the deadly accident.

One black box was recovered Friday, which will likely lead to clues about what went wrong. Witness accounts, including from the surviving passenger, and ample video of the plane’s final moments will help investigators, though an intense fire at the crash site impeded the initial search of the wreckage.

Ram Mohan Naidu, India’s minister in charge of civil aviation, established a “high level committee” to investigate the crash, with three months to share results.

Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said Saturday over 200 “caregivers” are in place in the northwestern city Ahmedabad to help families who lost loved ones. The airline and authorities are working to reunite next of kin with their loved ones and personal effects.

Air India’s parent company Tata Group said shortly after the crash it would provide financial compensation to the victims’ families. On Saturday, Air India said it would provide additional payments to those who lost loved ones, as well as the sole survivor aboard the plane. 

“Our teams on the ground are doing everything possible to extend care and support during this incredibly difficult time,” the airline said in a statement.

Tragedy looms over the air show

As industry executives travel from the city center to the outskirts of Paris on Monday, prepared to meet with potential customers and partners, the crash will remain top of mind. 

While some scheduled events have been canceled out of respect for the victims’ families, others that aren’t hosted by Boeing or GE will go on. Boeing, too, will keep some of its programming related to specific projects, including a display of its latest widebody, the 777X, and an exhibit from Boeing subsidiary Wisk Aero, which hopes to develop a flying air taxi. 

But, as Ortberg outlined in a note to employees announcing his decision not to attend the Paris Air Show, the company’s thoughts are with the victim’s families and focus is on supporting Air India and accident investigators.