The co-founder of Indonesia’s Lion Air, one of two airlines that lost passengers and crew in recent crashes involving the 737 MAX, has lashed out at Boeing’s handling of the accidents as the potential business fallout from the jet’s grounding intensifies.
Rusdi Kirana said a recent apology by Boeing over the 346 lives lost in the two disasters, firstly at Lion Air in October and then at Ethiopian Airlines last month, stood in contrast to what he viewed as hasty earlier criticism of Lion Air’s pilots.
In a telephone interview, Kirana also accused Boeing of treating him as a “piggy bank”. Lion Air has spent tens of billions of dollars on plane orders with Boeing to become one of Asia’s largest budget carriers.
