BOEING FINDS NEW FLAW IN 737 MAX JETS
SEATTLE: Boeing Co. found debris that could pose potential safety risks in the fuel tanks of several 737 MAX aircraft that are in storage and waiting to be delivered to airlines, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
Foreign object debris, an industrial term for rags, tools, metal shavings and other materials left behind by workers during the production process, has been a quality control issue for various Boeing aircraft, such as its KC-46 tankers.
Mark Jenks, general manager of the 737 program, told employees in the memo that such debris was “absolutely unacceptable” and that the company was taking steps to address the issue in its production system.
A Boeing spokesman confirmed the memo’s authenticity, and said Boeing does not see the debris as contributing to delays in the jet’s return to service.
The objects were found during maintenance work on some of the hundreds of 737 MAX jetliners Boeing has built but not delivered due to a worldwide ban imposed last March following two crashes that killed 346 people, he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meawhile, the firm heads to court on Wednesday to dispute a request from lawyers representing victims of a 737 MAX crash for documents related to the aircraft’s design, development and two fatal disasters.
See Chart 2A and 2B: Percentage contribution to increases in CPI Food and FPI
As can be seen, both in December and January, vegetables alone contributed more than 50% of the rise in India’s food inflation. The FPI does not have even have this category. Similarly, role of cereal prices in CPI Food and FPI is completely different. Cereal inflation had a contribution of -4.7% and 0.8% to FPI in December and January. The contribution of the cereals and products subcategory to CPI Food was 7.7% and 9.7% in December and January. In fact, the cereal sub-components of FPI and CPI Food have behaved very differently in the recent period. While the cereal component of CPI has been rising, the cereal part of FPI has been contracting.
See Chart 3: CPI Cereal and FPI Cereal
Why are Indian cereal prices rising at a time when production is set to break yet another record and the global price environment is benign?
In his column published on January 16 in Mint, Himanshu, an associate professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, blamed government policy for this development.
“In the run-up to the General Elections, the government procured 34 million tonnes of wheat in 2019, on top of the 36 million tonnes procured in 2018. These are the highest procurement levels since 2012-13. But it failed to distribute the wheat through the public distribution system, so there just wasn’t enough to go around. As of January, total stocks with Food Corporation of India (FCI) stand at 75 million tonnes, 33 million tonnes of it wheat, and the rest, rice. This implies that almost all the wheat that the FCI procured before the polls is still with it. This is
Jan-12 FPI: Food Price Inflation; FAO: Food and Agricultural Organisation
Sub catagory Cereals Dairy Meat Vegetable oil Sugar
A COMPARISON OF THE CONSUMER PRICE INDEX FOOD AND FAO’S FOOD PRICE INDEX SHOW THAT THE TWO HAVE BEEN MOVING IN TANDEM IN THE LAST ONE YEAR
almost a third of the country’s total wheat production.”
To be sure, the movement in oil and fats sub-category of the CPI could have been affected by a spike in the vegetable oils component of FPI via the import route. However, as the analysis here shows, this cannot explain even a small fraction of the recent spike in food inflation in the country.
Because food has a 39% share in the overall inflation basket, a spike in food inflation in December also led to overall CPI rising 7.35%, the highest since July 2014. Given the importance of food in our inflation basket, it is important that no wrong conclusions are drawn about the sources of food inflation. As this analysis clearly shows: it’s local.
Weight in % 27.2 17.3 34.8 13.5 7.2
Source: FAO, CMIE