US grounding of Boeing jet shows limits of company’s clout
Posted March 13, 2019 2:03 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WASHINGTON — Aerospace giant Boeing is a juggernaut in Washington. The company employs a team of in-house lobbyists and blue chip firms as part of a multimillion dollar influence operation built to shape policy on Capitol Hill and inside the Trump administration.
But Boeing’s clout goes only so far.
Bowing to international pressure, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he was issuing an emergency order to ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft following the Ethiopian Airlines disaster. A Max 8 flown by Lion Air in Indonesia crashed in October.
The decision comes a day after Boeing’s CEO Dennis Muilenburg spoke with Trump by phone. A White House official not authorized to publicly discuss a private conversation says Muilenburg urged Trump not to ground the fleet.
Richard Lardner And Jonathan Lemire, The Associated Press
