A lot of people thought this couldn’t happen. Difficult to overstate the enormity of this to the industry.
Would the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights.
Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
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Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#12A lot of people thought this couldn’t happen. Difficult to overstate the enormity of this to the industry.
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Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#13Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#14So they have decided that it's cheaper to scrap that particular model than fix the issues, likely more reputation than technical.
They are suspending production until the grounding is lifted.
Not killing off the product.
They will of course not be paying the tens of thousands of workers that work on that product while production is suspended.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#15The big question is why they haven't done it already? Boeing's disconnect from reality is painful to watch.
It is a question, but the answer is probably pretty mundane.
An airplane is a tremendously complex machine, and building them is a well honed process with lots of checks and balances built in which protect the investment the company is making in building such a complex device.
So no doubt there are many many root cause analysis meetings which are going on to root out the failures in the process that let the plane get to this point.
But historically, the company has made modifications to the 737 airframe to provide new models and those changes have gone well. Certainly in the sense that they produced a viable airplane that was safe to fly.
I would speculate that due to the history of the 737 airframe, and the track record of creating new variants that are safe, and the challenge of stopping the manufacturing line for such a plane which literally has thousands of suppliers making parts on a schedule that has years of deliveries in it, it took this long to get through the various options that would not require stopping the production of the plane. Stopping production is literally the second worse scenario[1] for Boeing.
[1] The worst is scrapping all existing planes.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#16The big question is why they haven't done it already? Boeing's disconnect from reality is painful to watch.
They were gambling on a quick fix that would be acceptable to regulators, and which could be easily retrofit to existing aircraft, including the ones still rolling off the production line. Pausing production has cost -- and if the planes were recertified by now, the cost of storing finished planes in parking lots is probably quite a bit less.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#17It will be difficult for Boeing to walk back the public opinion of the 737 MAX for what they have done. I know plenty of airline customers who intend to never fly a segment that utilizes one.
I sincerely doubt many people will remember anything about this five years from now. There have been dozens of crashes involving various models of the 737 series, and the vast majority of the population could not name a single incident.
As soon as this is out of the news cycle, everyone will forget.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#18It will be difficult for Boeing to walk back the public opinion of the 737 MAX for what they have done. I know plenty of airline customers who intend to never fly a segment that utilizes one.
Sad it had to come through death and wallet-vote... may agencies reinforce checking and limit absurd loopholes
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#19I'm surprised that the market hasn't reacted more negatively towards Boeing regarding the Max 8 disaster.
Airlines operate on razor-thin margins (~1 to 2%), and several users of the Max 8 have had significant portions of their fleet out of service as a result.
Westjet [1], for example runs 124 planes currently. 13 of which are the Max 8. Over 10% of their fleet. Southwest Airlines [2], for example, runs 748 planes, 34 of which are Max 8s (with an additional 246 ordered), ~4.5% of the fleet.
The lawsuits that are surely incoming are going to pile-drive this company into the ground.
edit: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WestJet#Current_fleet edit 2: [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_fleet#Curre...
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#20The big question is why they haven't done it already? Boeing's disconnect from reality is painful to watch.
They have outstanding orders for around 5000 737 MAXes. Assuming they get them reapproved some time soon, keeping the production going to not fall too far behind their delivery schedule will likely have saved them a fortune in late-fees.