Airlines find loose parts on grounded Boeing 737 Max planes

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Good morning.

We start with more bad news for Boeing ahead of a company-wide safety meeting triggered by Friday’s mid-air blowout aboard a 737 Max plane. United Airlines and Alaska Airlines have found loose parts on some grounded 737 Maxes, threatening to widen the troubled company’s problems.

Chicago-based United said yesterday that inspections of its 737 Max 9s, a variant of the single-aisle jet that contains more seats than the more popular Max 8, “found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening”.

Alaska Airlines also said: “Initial reports from our technicians indicate some loose hardware was visible on some aircraft.” The airline said it was waiting for final documentation from Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration to begin formal inspections.

The discoveries come after a Max 9 operated by Alaska, flying from Oregon to California, lost a chunk of its fuselage at 16,000 feet. There were 171 passengers and six crew members aboard, but no one was seriously injured.

Here’s the latest on the incident and more reading on the impact to the US aerospace and defence group:

And here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: The World Bank publishes its Global Economic Prospects report, the EU releases November unemployment data and Germany has industrial production figures for the same month.

• David Cameron: MPs in the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee will question the former prime minister for the first time since he took up the post of foreign secretary.

• Blinken in Israel: The US secretary of state visits Tel Aviv as fears of a regional conflict grow after senior Hamas and Hizbollah figures were killed yesterday.

• Donald Trump: The former US president is due to appear in federal court in Washington as his lawyers argue that he is immune from prosecution on charges that he interfered with the 2020 election.

How can liberal democracies meet the challenge of mass migration? Join the FT’s Martin Wolf and Alec Russell, as well as expert guests, on January 24 for a webinar exclusively for FT subscribers. Put your questions to our panel here and register for free here.

Five more top stories

1. Investors are warning governments around the world over “out of control” levels of public debt, saying excessive pre-election borrowing promises risk sparking a bond market backlash. Government debt issuance in the US and the UK is expected to soar to the highest level on record in the coming year, with the exception of the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here’s how much different countries are set to borrow this year.

2. Exclusive: Bain & Company has picked a European to be its global chief executive for the first time in its 50-year history, appointing Christophe De Vusser, the head of its European private equity advisory business, to the top job. De Vusser, a Belgian, will succeed Manny Maceda, who will step down on July 1 at the end of his second three-year term. Read the full story.

3. Exclusive: Crypto and fintech groups were fined $5.8bn by global authorities last year for lax controls in customer checks, anti-money laundering, upholding sanctions and other issues. The figure exceeds the $835mn paid by the entire traditional financial system, which was the lowest in a decade. Read the Financial Times’ full analysis.

4. Exclusive: A Sequoia-backed broker often called Europe’s answer to Robinhood turned a profit for the first time in its eight-year history last year. Berlin-based Trade Republic reported a “solid double-digit million euro amount” of net profit in the year to September, co-founder Christian Hecker told the FT. Public filings show that it made a net loss of €145mn the previous year. Olaf Storbeck has more details from Frankfurt.

5. Mario Draghi has been tipped as a leading contender to replace Charles Michel as European Council president, EU officials and diplomats have told the FT. The former European Central Bank chief who was also Italy’s prime minister was one of the candidates brought up as talks over the bloc’s top jobs were jump-started by Michel’s plan to resign early. Here are other names that have been floated.

For more insight into the most consequential topics in European politics and policy, premium subscribers can sign up for our Europe Express newsletter. Or, upgrade your subscription here.

The Big Read

The EU has imposed the world’s first tax on emissions of carbon-intensive imports, starting with cement, iron, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, hydrogen and steel. The levy will come into force in 2026, but the transition is already under way. The decision could set into motion a wave of countries enforcing similar measures, and on a wider variety of products, delivering a devastating collective blow to China, the world’s biggest steel producer.

We’re also reading . . . 

Chart of the day

Oil prices dropped sharply yesterday as Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut its official selling price for oil exports in February overshadowed heightened tensions in the Middle East. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, fell 3.9 per cent to $75.70 a barrel, while the equivalent US benchmark fell 4.7 per cent to $70.37 a barrel.

Take a break from the news

Can schedule send save us from out-of-hours emails? As the boundaries between work and leisure time become more porous, timing messages can aid flexible work while protecting colleagues’ free time. But some fear it can hide bigger workload issues, writes Bethan Staton.

Additional contributions from Benjamin Wilhelm and Gordon Smith