The Air Current

United Airlines limited itself to destinations in far Western Europe for its first deployment of the A321XLR, taking a more cautious view of the jet’s range than Airbus’s marketers. “I feel like we’re very conservative with the range of the aircraft,” said Patrick Quayle, United senior vice president of global network planning. “Originally when Airbus marketed it, [the range] was a lot further than what it is right now, as constructed and as built.” United first ordered the XLR in 2019.

Log-in here if you’re already a subscriber Boeing ratcheted up pressure on SPEEA, the union representing 17,000 engineers, scientists and technical workers, after its members rejected the largest wage increases offered in 40 years and voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike. In an Aug. 21 message to union members, Boeing said it had withdrawn perks for 2026 that it had promised the white collar union for early approval of the new collective bargaining agreement.

Boeing’s unionized engineers and technical workers rejected a four-year contract offer from the plane maker An active TAC/Pro or Individual Business subscription is required. Keep reading with a TAC/Pro or Individual Business subscription. An active TAC/Pro or Individual Business subscription is required. Keep reading with a TAC/Pro or Individual Business subscription.

Boeing is poised to rewrite the saga of its CST-100 Starliner, the seemingly star-crossed capsule that stranded two astronauts at the International Space Station for nine months. Thruster failures turned Starliner’s docking with the orbiting lab into a white-knuckle near-disaster for astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams during its first crewed flight in June 2024.

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Log-in here if you’re already a subscriber Tennessee-based startup Whisper Aero last week performed the first crewed flights with its ultra-quiet electric ducted fans, demonstrating that an Aeriane Swift 3 glider powered by its eQ250 propulsors is no louder than the same aircraft in unpowered flight.

It was a sunny morning in March in the skies northeast of Alpharetta, Georgia, and I was struggling to maintain my bank angle in slow flight. As our Cessna 172 slowed to 60 knots, my flight instructor advised me to limit my bank angle to 10 degrees. But the controls were mushy at that speed, and she pointed out that I kept nudging our aircraft deeper into a turn, increasing our risk of a stall. Her feedback registered vividly at the time.

Log-in here if you’re already a subscriber When Boeing personnel hoisted a prototype of its MQ-25 Stingray aerial refueling drone aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in June, the high-profile visit revealed a potential expansion of its role that has long been suspected but repeatedly denied by the Pentagon.

Air safety reporting is made accessible without a subscription as a public service. Subscribe to The Air Current for full access to our scoops, in-depth reporting and industry analysis. NTSB investigators are probing the role a bird strike played in the fan-blade-out accident experienced by a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 last month as it climbed out of Thessaloniki International Airport in Greece.

Archer Aviation will acquire Boeing’s Wisk Aero, SkyGrid and Insitu subsidiaries in an all-stock transaction that is poised to make Boeing the largest outside shareholder in the electric vertical take-off and landing developer, the companies announced on Aug. 10.