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Technology Stocks : Boeing keeps setting new highs! When will it split? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale J. who wrote (1895)	10/23/1998 5:31:00 PM
From: Dale J.	Respond to of 3763

United Calls Boeing 'Dysfunctional,' Warns of Shift (Repeat) Bloomberg News October 23, 1998, 12:33 p.m. PT United Calls Boeing 'Dysfunctional,' Warns of Shift (Repeat) Seattle, Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Top executives at United Airlines, one of Boeing Co.'s biggest customers, called the planemaker ''dysfunctional'' and threatened to buy more planes from rival Airbus Industrie at a meeting with Boeing earlier this month. The executives complained that Boeing is focusing so heavily on keeping costs down in the midst of a record production buildup that it's turning down United's requests for modifications of minor defects in some aircraft, according to an Oct. 8 internal Boeing memorandum of the meeting. ''We (United) do not trust you (Boeing),'' Andy Studdert, the airline's senior vice president for fleet operations, told Boeing executives, according to the memo. ''Your behavior indicates that you are a dysfunctional organization,'' the memo quoted Studdert as saying. ''Improve quality and support or United will be forced to use Airbus airplanes.'' Spokesmen for both companies confirmed the memo. The comments show that Boeing still faces deep concerns about whether it can meet the needs of customers more than a year after it disclosed unprecedented assembly-line bottlenecks that forced it to delay deliveries. It lost $178 million last year, its first annual loss in five decades, even as orders surged to their highest since the late 1980s. United, a unit of UAL Corp., has 47 aircraft on order with Boeing, though earlier this year United chose Airbus over Boeing for a purchase of short-haul planes. In the memo, United executives stressed that the decision was unusual, and that they'd prefer buying from Boeing if it irons out its problems. ''You could describe it as tough love in that we had a frank, candid discussion about our concerns,'' said Joe Hopkins, a United spokesman. ''The good news is that as a result of this meeting, we think that things are back on track.'' Boeing shares fell 7/8 to 35 9/16 in midafternoon trading.