Boeing share price: US plane-maker's share tumbles after Alaska Airlines blowout - how does it compare to rival Airbus?

Boeing’s share price has tumbled after a window blew out of one of its 737 Max 9 planes flown by Alaska Airlines shortly after the jet took off. The incident which occurred on Friday 5 January forced the plane to emergency land and promptly after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the grounding of the fleet for safety checks.

One passenger described that the gap in the plane was "as wide as a refrigerator" while another said a child's shirt was ripped off in the wind. It has since been revealed by a US official that a warning light had come on during three previous flights on 7 December, 3 and 4 January. Jennifer Homendy, chair of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Alaska Airlines then decided to restrict the aircraft from long flights over water so the plane "could return very quickly to an airport" if the warning light reappeared. She added that these occurrences could be unrelated to the incident that occurred last Friday.

Yesterday (Monday 8 January) the US plane-maker's shares ended trading down 8%, while shares in supplier Spirit Aerosystems fell 11%. Spirit AeroSystems, which made and installed the part that blew off the aircraft, said in a statement on Monday that its "primary focus" was "the quality and product integrity of the aircraft structures we deliver". It added: "We are grateful the Alaska Airlines crew performed the appropriate procedures to land the airplane with all passengers and crew safe.”

The Boeing 737 planes have now come under scrutiny following the incident over their safety. The Boeing 737 Max Series was announced in 2011 and was introduced in May 2017. A Max 8 jet operated by Lion Air crashed in Indonesia in 2018, and an Ethiopian Airlines Max 8 crashed in 2019. Regulators around the world grounded the planes for nearly two years while Boeing changed an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

Since the 2018 and 2019 accidents, Boeing’s rival Airbus has taken the top spot as the world's top plane-seller. The French firm has been expanding its market share. Its share rose more than 3% in trade on Monday.