Emirates chief backs Boeing-Spirit merger amid factory crisis

By Ilona Wissenbach

BERLIN (Reuters) - One of Boeing's biggest customers, Dubai carrier Emirates, threw its support behind a possible Boeing takeover of Spirit AeroSystems, saying it would be a step towards resolving the planemaker's industrial crisis.

U.S. regulators have been carrying out factory audits and reported findings at both Boeing and supplier Spirit following the dramatic blowout of a dummy door on an almost-full 737 MAX 9 airliner in January.

Emirates Airline President Tim Clark told reporters in Berlin that Boeing should address its quality problems as quickly as possible with the undiluted attention of its board and top management or face questions over its future.

Boeing said last week it was in talks to buy its former subsidiary Spirit. Separately, industry sources said Spirit and Boeing's European rival Airbus had explored the idea of Airbus taking over some Spirit operations that supply parts for its jets.

Spirit makes around 70% of the 737 MAX and builds the forward fuselage for the 787 and future 777X, both of which Emirates has ordered. It was spun off from Boeing in 2005.

"I never understood that at the time. It would be like us saying we are going to take our engineering and operations and give them to someone else to run," Clark, one of the industry's most influential leaders, said on the sidelines of the ITB travel fair.

"This is anathema to our way of thinking but that is what they did and I think it has been a problem for them ever since."

Asked how long he thought it would take for Boeing to get itself back on track, Clark said: "It depends how much resource they put in it. It requires the undiluted focus of the board, to the exclusion of everything else.

"They must, all of them, deal with this problem first and foremost. Don't worry about anything else, just get this job done. Because if you don't, your company will go out of existence. Another event like this will almost cripple the company," he said, adding the U.S, government and travelling public expected nothing less.

"I think (Boeing CEO Dave) Calhoun and his colleagues are on it, but ...it's up to them," he said.

Boeing said last week it would develop an action plan that demonstrates "profound change" and that its leadership team was totally committed to meeting this challenge.

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, Writing by Tim Hepher, Editing by Louise Heavens and Elaine Hardcastle)