It has been a rough few weeks for Boeing. After the terrifying ordeal of the Alaska Airlines flight in which the fuselage tore open at 16,000 feet, airlines found loose parts on additional Boeing planes, alarming everyday fliers around the world. Now the diplomat class is getting a taste of the company’s problems.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was left without a ride at the World Economic Forum at Davos — a rather embarrassing place for one’s private plane to break down — when the modified Boeing 737 he rode in on was deemed unsafe to fly. (The plane in question is not a 737 Max, which has a long and troubled history.) Bloomberg reports that an oxygen leak on the plane had been “detected previously” but was not able to be fixed before Blinken flew out of the Swiss ski resort where he had called for a “pathway to a Palestinian state.”
It’s still unclear which of the executive-branch planes crapped out on the secretary, though other members of the Biden administration have had trouble with Boeing in the past: In 2021, Vice-President Kamala Harris was forced to turn around on a trip to Guatemala because of trouble with the landing gear on a 757. But we now know that consulting for Boeing does not make you immune to its troubles: Before he joined the Biden administration he was an adviser for the aerospace and defense firm.
Blinken, who has been busy ferrying back and forth to Israel since October, was not stranded at Davos for long. Bloomberg reports that he got on a “smaller jet” to fly home, though his aides had to schlep their bags on a commercial flight. Next time, maybe he should go with Airbus.
