By Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks The Port of Seattle will spend $5 million to repair and replace soundproofing equipment it funded years ago in homes near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport that has since failed and led to moldy windows, rotting wood frames and damaged drywall. Community advocates and residents with failed soundproofing installations in their homes celebrated the
Facial recognition: Coming soon to an airport near you
By Christine Chung The New York Times On a recent Thursday morning in Queens, travelers streamed through the exterior doors of La Guardia Airport’s Terminal C. Some were bleary-eyed — most hefted briefcases — as they checked bags and made their way to the security screening lines. It was business as usual, until some approached
Boeing, not Spirit, mis-installed piece that blew off Alaska MAX 9 jet, industry source says
By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times. If verified by the National Transportation
Boeing’s manufacturing, ethical lapses go back decades
By Andy Pasztor Special to The Seattle Times Probes of the recent Boeing 737 MAX cabin blowout must expand far beyond safety practices and manufacturing controls. Investigators should scrutinize persistent company failures over the past four decades to become more transparent and law-abiding. Before this month’s cabin blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet
Boeing hit by quality lapses, certification delays; Airbus soars to dominance
By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter While Boeing’s leadership scrambled to contain its latest crisis — following the in-flight door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 — top executives at Airbus confidently laid out the rival’s success in 2023 and its dominance of the commercial airliner business. The data on last year’s jet
Congress must force Boeing to be better
By The Seattle Times editorial board Boeing is in the region’s collective DNA. Even though the company decamped for Chicago in 2001 and is now headquartered in a corporate suburb of Washington, D.C., Boeing still has a special place in our consciousness that goes beyond its statewide workforce of about 60,000. Call it pride. Pride
Boeing and U.S. aerospace set back by Alaska Airlines fuselage blowout
Jan. 14, 2024 at 6:00 am Updated Jan. 14, 2024 at 6:00 am By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter When a door-sized section of a 737 MAX 9 fuselage exploded out into the void 16,000 feet over Portland, Boeing’s once-solid reputation, already staggered by the two MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, took another
Is Sea-Tac Airport really the nation’s worst for international travel?
By Vonnai Phair Seattle Times staff reporter If you’ve traveled through an airport during the winter holiday season, you’ve probably experienced the habitual holiday horrors: weather delays, canceled flights, grueling lines, miserable crowds. Tack on the stresses of travelling internationally — and having to consider factors like customs and citizenship status — and holiday travel
How airline mergers hurt travelers — and how you can fight them
By Christopher Elliott Special to The Seattle Times Travel Troubleshooter If the latest wave of proposed airline mergers has left you a little worried, then you have a good memory. Historically, airline mergers are terrible for passengers. And the latest two — the proposed combination of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, and of JetBlue Airways
With some flight attendants on welfare, Alaska Airlines faces contract fight
By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter You wouldn’t know it to look at them. Junior Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they are barely getting by on poverty level wages, many of them building up debt and scrambling to make rent. Yes, they look sleekly professional on the job. But some with children qualify for