An international airline is currently facing off against Boeing in federal court, accusing the company of hiding safety problems with a popular aircraft in order to sell planes.
LOT Polish Airlines, Poland’s flag carrier, initially filed suit against the airplane manufacturer in Seattle’s U.S. District Court in October 2021. The airline claims to have lost, and continues to lose, “millions of dollars” due to what it claims is Boeing misrepresenting that its 737 MAX aircraft was safe and airworthy.
“This case is about Boeing’s lies and deception and the devastating financial harm it caused,” LOT’s attorney, Anthony Battista, said during opening statements on Monday, per Reuters.
LOT claims that in 2016, Boeing convinced the company to acquire a batch of single-aisle 737 MAX jets in line with its plans to recover from financial troubles, per a first amended complaint. However, they say those plans were disrupted in 2019 when aviation regulators grounded the aircraft following two deadly crashes.
A representative for Boeing had no comment, citing pending litigation.
The Lion Air flight 610 crash on Oct. 29, 2018, killed 189 people and the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash on March 10, 2019, killed 154. Boeing later acknowledged the “common chain link” was with the 737 MAX’s maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS).
LOT says three days after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, the aircraft was grounded “for almost two years.” “In light of these grounding orders, LOT had to cancel a large number of flights for which it had to compensate passengers, losing revenue, while being forced to continue to compensate its employees,” the company says in its complaint. They further allege they were “forced to acquire replacement aircraft less suitable to its flight network.”
The planes were eventually cleared to fly in November 2020, PBS reports.
In court on Monday, Boeing’s attorney accused LOT of “crying foul and fraud out of one side of their mouth in the courtroom,” as they continue to fly the MAX every day, per Reuters. “Is that how the victim of a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme behaves?”
Boeing has already paid out billions of dollars to the families of victims of the two crashes, the company previously told the outlet. It also paid large amounts in out-of-court settlements brought forth by airlines hurt by the MAX grounding. However, those sums have not been publicly disclosed.