Profits hurt by Boeing crisis

THE grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max jets has rocked profits at holiday firm Tui and aviation services group John Menzies.

Tui has estimated the crisis will cost it as much as £278m between March and September.

And John Menzies, which coordinates services such as baggage handling and refuelling, said it was a factor that pushed it into the red.

Boeing’s worldwide fleet of 737 Max planes, its fastest-selling aircraft, were temporarily taken out of service in March following the second of two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. Boeing is scrambling to fix faulty software that left the planes angling downwards soon after take-off.

But the planes will still need to pass checks and are not expected to fly again until the end of this year.

Tui, Europe’s biggest holiday company, has racked up costs from disruption to flight schedules, leasing replacement planes and hiring extra crew members.

Tui chief executive Fritz Joussen said: ‘It’s a critical situation, with the jet on the ground now for almost five months. It’s a lot of stress.’ Its loss widened from £108m to £299m, even though sales rose 2.4pc to £10.6bn in the nine months to June 30.

It also said the fall in the value of the pound was putting people off booking holidays abroad.

John Menzies plunged into the red in the six months to June 30, posting a £4.4m loss compared with a profit of £8.3m in the same period of the year before.

Chief executive Giles Wilson also said airlines were failing to fly to their stated schedules, a fact compounded by the grounding of Boeing 737 Max craft.