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By DAVID KOENIG (AP Airlines Writer)

An engineer at Boeing said Wednesday that the aircraft company, in rushing to produce as many planes as possible, is taking manufacturing shortcuts that could lead to jetliners breaking apart.

“They are putting out defective airplanes,” the engineer, Sam Salehpour, told members of a Senate subcommittee.

Salehpour was testifying about Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, hundreds of which are in use by airlines, mostly on international routes. He spoke while another Senate committee held a separate hearing on the safety culture at Boeing.

The dual hearings were a sign of the intense pressure on Boeing since a door-plug panel blew off a 737 Max jetliner during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The company is under multiple investigations, and the FBI has told passengers from the flight that they might be victims of a crime. Regulators limited Boeing’s rate of aircraft production, and even minor incidents involving its planes attract news coverage.

Salehpour alleged that workers at a Boeing factory used excessive force to jam together sections of fuselage on the Dreamliner. The extra force could compromise the carbon-composite material used for the plane’s frame, he said. read more

Orlando-based Red Lobster is considering whether to file for bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg, quoting unidentified sources familiar with the matter.

Red Lobster has been struggling financially for years. The company’s main investor, Thai Union, cut ties with the seafood chain earlier this year and said it would be looking for a buyer.

If it were to file for Chapter 11 restructuring, the company could continue to operate its 650 restaurants while it restructures its debt. Bloomberg reported that talks were ongoing and not yet final.

A $20 “endless shrimp” promotion that began last summer was so popular that it contributed to the company’s $11 million loss in the third quarter. Thai Union said the company would lose more than $20 million for the entire year.

Red Lobster has had three CEOs in the past two years.

When CEO Kelli Valade resigned in 2022 after just eight months at the helm, one industry analyst called the quick departure “very, very, very bad.”

The first Red Lobster was opened by Bill Darden in 1968 in Lakeland. In 1970, General Mills bought the chain and helped it to grow rapidly. read more

MIAMI BEACH — The COVID pandemic drove the cruise industry to a standstill, but numbers released Tuesday signal the years of comeback are officially over with more expansion on tap.

More than 31.7 million passengers took cruises worldwide in 2023, said Kelly Craighead, Cruise Line International Association president and CEO, speaking at the annual Seatrade Cruise Global conference at Miami Beach Convention Center.

CLIA is the lobbying group for member cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Disney Cruise Line, Carnival, Norwegian, MSC and most other major brands.

The pandemic shut down sailing from March 2020 with only a small number of ships coming back online 18 months later in summer 2021. Cruise lines didn’t return to full strength until partially through 2022, so it wasn’t until a full year of sailing in 2023 that the industry could get a real handle on just what the demand had grown to as people returned to vacation travel.

“We are an industry that’s resilient and thriving all around the world, breaking records in ways we might never have imagined,” she said. read more

By Funto Omojola | NerdWallet

More Americans are defaulting on their car loans due to larger loan amounts, high interest rates, increased living costs and more.

The number of borrowers who fell more than 90 days behind on their auto loans rose to 2.66% in the fourth quarter of 2023 — a nearly 20% increase from the same time last year, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Why are more people defaulting on car loans?

Borrowers are struggling in part due to sky-high interest rates and increased expenses that have made it difficult for many to be current on their loans, according to Vince Shorb, CEO of the National Financial Educators Council.

“A lot of people are at that point now where they’ve been barely making ends meet,” he says. “They’ve just been getting trounced with inflation, trounced with higher interest rates across the board.”

Many auto lenders offer debt relief programs that can lessen the impact for struggling borrowers — but the key is to reach out before you’re underwater on your loan. read more

The spacecraft has left the building.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, set to take its first humans on board during the Crew Flight Test mission next month, was transported from Boeing’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center on a 10-mile trip to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

It arrived at United Launch Alliance’s Vertical Integration Facility early Tuesday where it was placed atop an Atlas V rocket ahead of the planned launch from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 as early as May 6. The capsule will take NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a planned eight-day mission to the International Space Station.

A moment in history.#Starliner is making the turn past @NASA‘s historic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

The VAB is where the Saturn V rocket and the Space Shuttle were assembled. Today it’s where the Space Launch System rocket is assembled ahead of Artemis missions. pic.twitter.com/Yht8CrIdX5

— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) April 16, 2024 read more