“Straw That Broke Camel’s Back”: United CEO Plans Alternative To Boeing’s Next Jet After 737 Max Chaos

United Airline’s Chief Executive Scott Kirby vented his frustrations about Boeing’s inability to overcome production quality lapses in its 737 Max jets that climaxed earlier this month with a plug door ripping off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 flight. 

Kirby told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau on ‘Squawk Box’ that he is “disappointed” in Boeing’s continuous manufacturing problems and the need for it to restore its previous reputation for quality.

He said the Max 10, which still needs to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, is five years behind schedule and could be pushed further into the future. This promoted the executive to reveal United has arrived at a critical inflection point with Boeing:

“We pushed further and further to the right and already started working on alternative plans, and the Max 9 groundings are the straw that broke the camel’s back for us, and we’ll build a plan that doesn’t have the Max 10 in it,” Kirby told LeBeau. 

Currently, United has 79 Max 9 aircraft in its fleet, the most of any other carrier. The company said in a fourth-quarter earnings update on Monday that the plane’s grounding after the Alaska Airlines incident will drive a first-quarter loss. 

Kirby wasn’t specific about how much he would reduce the standing order of Max 10 jets and whether he would replace those jets with Boeing’s European rival Airbus. 

Watch the full interview here: