At Edmonds Chamber meeting: Boeing exec talks about public trust, aircraft demand, fuel efficiency

Boeing Government Relations Manager Rich White speaks to Edmonds Chamber of Commerce members Thursday night.

Boeing’s Government Relations Manager Rich White spoke at the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce Community Update event at Salish Brewing Co. Boathouse Taproom Thursday.

White started with the history of Boeing, followed by its workforce and market recovery following the pandemic. He pointed out that in 2022, the Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK) was about 6 trillion and is expected to increase to 20 trillion by 2042. RPK is a measurement used in the airline industry to calculate the total distance traveled by paying passengers on a specific flight or airline within a given period.

He added that airlines worldwide will need 42,595 new airplanes over the next 20 years, with Eurasia, China, North America and Asia-Pacific regions having the highest demands. The majority of these planes (about 32,420) are single-aisle passenger planes.

However, the amount of passenger traffic is at about 90% of pre-pandemic level and the passenger capacity is at 92%.

“The recovery is a little bit uneven,” White said. “For the most part, it’s back to where it historically has been, primarily [U.S.] domestic flights. Where it’s lagging is the international, long-haul flights. You know, not everybody decides to go to Tokyo every other week.”

Airline passenger traffic is at about 90% of pre-pandemic levels, White said.

During the Q&A session, White acknowledged that there have been some concerns with public trust of Boeing’s aircraft safety, especially with the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 incident when the door plug on the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft blew out, causing an uncontrolled decompression of the aircraft. 

“The challenge is to be able to restore faith in our customers, our regulators and the flying public about the safety of flights and about the effort that we at Boeing – from every employee to the executives and mechanics – care about,” White said. “Our biggest challenge is to continue to do the hard work to make sure our safety management system inside the company is reflective of the Boeing values.”

When asked about the recent WARN notices (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification), White said that he “couldn’t speak on something” that he doesn’t know about. A WARN notice is a U.S. legal requirement that mandates employers to provide advance notice – usually 60 days – to employees in the event of certain job losses, such as plant closures or mass layoffs. The last time Boeing laid off employees was on Nov. 20, 2023, when 530 Boeing employees were let go in the Puget Sound region.

Regarding the industry’s search for cleaner airplane fuel, White said that hydrogen is currently problematic because hydrogen does not get lighter as it flies from point A to B. That’s in contrast to an airplane that burns traditional jet fuel during flight — its weight decreases and becomes more fuel efficient to fly at higher cruising altitudes.

“In the next 50 to 70 years, most of the replacement fuel to curb the CO2 emissions will have to be done from SAF – sustainable aviation fuel,” White said. “Currently, airplanes globally represent between 4% to 5% of CO2 emissions. As we electrify most of the ground transportation network, that percentage will grow if we don’t do anything about it. That percentage depends on other transportations’ emissions.”

Meanwhile, several aircraft engineering companies have been experimenting with small, hybrid aircrafts that use jet fuel and hydrogen. White said that current hydrogen fuel technology works better on small airplanes than commercial planes.

Learn more about the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce here.

— Story and photos by Nick Eng

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