• An Air India Boeing 787 crashed less than a minute after takeoff on Thursday.
• The crash comes as both Boeing and Air India are trying to turn themselves around.
• Attorneys and aviation experts said no conclusions could be drawn until the investigation ended.

Thursday's fatal crash of an Air India Boeing 787 shortly after takeoff comes as both the airline and Boeing try to revive their public images.

After 2024 became an annus horribilis for Boeing, 2025 is crucial for the planemaker to show it is successfully overhauling its processes.

CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took over last year and has made the turnaround the centerpiece of his leadership, has scrapped plans to travel to next week's Paris Air Show, CNBC and Bloomberg reported. The event is a crucial industry showcase. Neither Boeing nor Air India responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.

On Thursday, Ortberg shared the company's "deepest condolences" to everyone affected and said a team stood ready to support the investigation.

After visiting the crash site Friday morning, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said in a video statement, "We know that the investigations will take time but we will be fully transparent and will support the process for as long as it takes."

"Air India will continue to do everything we can to care for those affected by this tragedy, and to uphold the trust placed in us," he added.

'The crash derails Boeing stock's positive momentum'

When an Alaska Airlines 737 Max lost a door plug during a January 2024 flight, regulators capped Boeing's production of the type. A seven-week strike then shut down key facilities, further hurting revenue.

Boeing ended 2024 as the Dow Jones' biggest loser, as its share price fell 31%. Investors had been reassured by Ortberg's work to turn the company around, and the stock had risen more than 20% in 2025 before the crash.

It dropped about 4% after Thursday's crash and fell more than 3% Friday morning.

Morgan Stanley analysts said Thursday that the crash "derails the positive momentum on Boeing's stock."

Jeff Windau, a senior industrials analyst for Edward Jones, said in a research note that he expects near-term volatility and raised the possibility of enhanced scrutiny on Boeing's processes.

"However, at this time, we do not feel there will be a long-term impact to production," he added.

Air India has been working to turn itself around

Following decades of state ownership and huge losses, Air India was acquired by the Tata Group in 2022. The airline has expanded with hundreds of additional flights, flying 60 million customers to 103 destinations through 2024.

The new owners invested billions, and the airline has ordered hundreds of planes to replace its aging fleet.

In a December interview with BI, Wilson compared his work revitalising Air India to "drinking from a firehose."

He added that he thought the turnaround was close to completion, but said there were supply-chain constraints. "Until we upgrade the aircraft, then people won't believe that the transformation has happened," Wilson said.

Alan Tan, an aviation law professor at the National University of Singapore, told BI that Air India in particular would have an immediate hit to customer perception.

"But as other leading airlines facing crises have shown, these are not insurmountable," he added. "Transparency and accountability in investigations, and consistent messaging to the public, will hopefully reduce the risks of a media spectacle."

A lengthy investigation

It will take a thorough and lengthy investigation before there are answers about what caused the crash.

Attorneys who have battled Boeing in the courts were among the people BI spoke to who were hesitant to draw any conclusions.

"The fact that this tragedy involves a Boeing aircraft does not necessarily mean that there's something wrong with the actual aircraft — as distinguished from issues surrounding maintenance, or even products that are not Boeing's, such as the engines," said Robert Clifford, lead counsel for the families of victims of the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash, in which a 737 Max crashed shortly after takeoff, killing more than 150 people.

He added that a quick and efficient investigation is necessary to "help calm the public."

Thursday's incident was the first fatal crash and total hull loss of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, one of the most advanced passenger jets, which entered service in 2011.

The model has faced some criticism from whistleblowers. Last year, Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing, told NBC he observed "shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks" in manufacturing 787s. Boeing responded that it was "fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner."

On Thursday, Salehpour's attorneys urged the Federal Aviation Administration to release a report investigating his claims.

Richard Aboulafia, managing director at Aerodynamic Advisory, told BI, "It's a terrible tragedy, but I just don't see how this impacts anything [for Boeing]."

"Unless it's the unlikely event that they do find a design or manufacturing flaw, but after all these years, both for this type of aircraft and this particular aircraft, that's not normal," he added.

• Unwanted subscriptions were about to get easier to cancel with the FTC's new click-to-cancel rule.
• But the commission just delayed its enforcement deadline by two more months.
• Ex-FTC commissioner Lina Khan says the move lets firms "keep trapping people" in pesky subscriptions.

It was about to get easier to get rid of that pesky subscription you've been stuck paying for until the Federal Trade Commission delayed enforcement of its new click-to-cancel rule.

Former FTC chair Lina Khan, in a Thursday post on X, said that the enforcement delay will give firms more time "to keep trapping people in subscriptions."

Most consumers are familiar with the unwanted subscription rigamarole: It's painlessly simple to sign up online for a streaming service, gym, or other subscription, but when the time comes to stop monthly payments and unsubscribe, there's no way to do it digitally, and you're forced into the dreaded routine of navigating call center chatbots that only seem to operate during the middle of your workday.

The FTC's click-to-cancel rule was supposed to go into effect in its entirety this week, ending the nightmarish cycle and making it just as easy for consumers to cancel their subscriptions as it was to start them. But on Friday, the commission's leaders voted to extend its enforcement deadline by two more months.

"Having conducted a fresh assessment of the burdens that forcing compliance by this date would impose, the Commission has determined that the original deferral period insufficiently accounted for the complexity of compliance," read a statement from Chairman Andrew Ferguson, co-signed by commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Mark Meador, about the decision.

After the FTC approved the click-to-cancel rule, also known as the Negative Option Rule, in November 2024, businesses had more than six months to comply before enforcement was scheduled to begin.

The rule's requirement to remove statements that misrepresent the nature of a subscription took effect on January 14. Its enforcement provisions — requiring clear disclosures, user consent, and easy cancellation policies —  were set to take effect on May 14. However, the FTC's latest decision pushes the enforcement deadline back by 60 days, to July 14.

"We object to the delay," former FTC commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter said in a joint statement posted to social media on Tuesday. "And were we allowed to exercise our duties as commissioners, we would have voted 'no.'"

Bedoya and Slaughter were the only two Democrats serving as FTC commissioners until March 18, when President Donald Trump fired them. The pair, whose terminations indicated their service at the FTC was "inconsistent" with Trump's policy priorities, have filed suit against the administration, alleging their firings violate a 1935 Supreme Court precedent that the president cannot fire FTC commissioners without cause, CNN reported.

Even if Bedoya and Slaughter had remained at the FTC, the conservative majority at the commission would be able to pass rules via a 3-2 vote. The decision to delay the click-to-cancel enforcement received a 3-0 vote, with all three Republican commissioners voting in favor of the deadline extension.

"The companies create these traps," Bedoya and Slaughter's statement continued. "They're the ones who made it so hard to get out. They didn't have to wait to make it easier to unsubscribe. But they did — they waited until the FTC told them to stop. Then, they still got six months to get their houses in order. Why do they get another two months to comply?"

Representatives for the FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.