Does Tesla's Battery Fire Tempt Boeing to Schadenfreude?

The joke about the mixed emotions when ones' mother-in-law drives off a cliff in your brand-new-car surely must describe how Boeing feels today watching Tesla defend the lithium ion batteries powering its cars. 

Tuesday (while I was writing a nice little feature  for the Times about a Tesla S as wedding coach) a similar sedan caught fire in Washington state, a roaring blaze captured on video by a passing motorist who spontaneously opined "Oh, s--t dude, that's a brand new car!" 

He then adds, "Wow, I can feel the heat in here." That may be the more significant statement which I will get to in a moment.

Boeing Boss Hearing About Bad Dreams In Europe

Conner, Photo courtesy Boeing

Last year when he was given the job of piloting Boeing's Commercial Airplane division into the next generation of aviation, Ray Conner told reporters he was "really excited" - and why not? The company was selling airplanes like hot cakes matching its dreamy aspirations with real Dreamliner-building capacity at the company's second assembly plant in South Carolina.

Those happy comments at the Farnborough Air Show in 2012 must seem like a distant memory now as Conner maneuvers through the turbulence created by a questionable battery design, assembly lapses and technology glitches. Unhappy customers are issuing error messages about the airplane the company calls "game changing."

LOT Dreamliners Spend the Weekend Grounded

The LOT Polish Dreamliner SP-LRB before it was grounded

Take a good look at this Boeing 787 in flight, then remember, that's not a sure thing with the troubled Dreamliner. In the most recent interruption, the six-month-old LOT Polish 787 tail number SP-LRB seen left and another plane, tail number SP-LRC were grounded for several days when mechanics discovered missing fuel filters on the planes' Rolls Royce engines. 

A source tells me during testing at Boeing in Everett, Washington, mechanics at the plane maker removed the engine's fuel filters and failed to re install them. The planes were then delivered to the airline and began flying in passenger service - even though running the engines in this condition could lead to engine damage. 

Baffling Delay on JFK Airport Hotels

As if we were waiting in the passenger boarding area for news of a delayed flight, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is providing just the merest trickle of information about the airport hotel it has long promised to bring to John F. Kennedy International Airport.

It is astonishing to me that the 19th busiest airport in the world does not have even one hotel on premises. Not the new one promised, not the replacement for the old Ramada at JFK that closed in 2009.

Norwegian Fully Awake To Realize Its Dream

Bjorn Kjos in the cockpit of a Norwegian 737

About a year ago, Nancy Branka, my editor at Executive Travel magazine assigned me to interview Bjorn Kjos, the affable boss of the upstart airline, Norwegian. Give the gal credit, she knew long before the rest of us, that Kjos was the kind of airline executive who makes his dreams come true.