Politics

Trump thinks Boeing should ‘rebrand’ 737 MAX plane

President Trump gave Boeing some advice about its 737 MAX 8 aircraft that has been grounded worldwide after two fatal crashes, suggesting the airline company “REBRAND” the plane with another name.

“What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name,” the former real estate mogul wrote Monday on Twitter. “No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?”

Investigators are looking at whether a software program in the passenger jet that controls the plane’s nose was a factor in the two crashes.

A Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air crashed in the Java Sea on Oct. 12, killing all 189 people on board.

Another 737 MAX 8 flown by Ethiopian Airlines crashed on March 19 in Ethiopia. All 157 on board were killed.

Days after the crash, Trump ordered the fleet grounded in the United States until more information can be compiled about the cause of the crashes.

“I didn’t want to take any chances. We didn’t have to make this decision today,” Trump said during the announcement March 13. “We could have delayed it. We maybe didn’t have to make it at all.

“But I felt it was important both psychologically and in a lot of other ways.”

By the time of Trump’s decision, other countries — including Canada, Britain, China, France and Germany — already had made the call to ground the aircraft.