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Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

wsj.com

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Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#41

Post by [deleted] »

calcifer wrote: post #33
jlmorton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> dozens of crashes That's wrong by an order of magnitude. 737 series had a total of 478 incidents, 213 of which is resulted in hull loss [1]. [1] https://aviation-safety.net/database/types/Boeing-737-series...

[deleted]

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#42

Post by wayoutthere »

ryanisnan wrote: post #19

I'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, 3…

> The lawsuits that are surely incoming are going to pile-drive this company into the ground.

Boeing is one of the most heavily subsidized companies in the world -- right alongside Airbus. They are a strategic asset to the United States far beyond their market value. The market knows this, hence why their stock is not being hammered.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#43

Post by themagician »

ryanisnan wrote: post #19

I'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, 3…

Boeing will be fine. By the end of next year everyone will have forgotten.

Even if Boeing wasn't fine, it would be fine, because the government would just bail them out.

Investors know this and ignore the drama.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#44

Post by keyle »

jamiek88 wrote: post #2

A lot of people thought this couldn’t happen. Difficult to overstate the enormity of this to the industry.

"too big to fail" they said.

"whatever it takes they will fix it".

I'm personally glad this model is getting shelved. You'd just have a bad taste flying in one of those regardless of tweaked the design is or how good the software is going to be.

I'm also glad this is happening because it's a win for humanity and a loss for bureaucracy.

I have full confidence that the next model will be rock solid and much better overall.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#45

Post by Swenrekcah »

jlmorton wrote: post #17
urda wrote: post #5

It 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.

But unlike the others, the max has been grounded for almost a year. It’s not just a news cycle, there are people who have never given two thoughts about the aircraft they fly on that now remember “that max plane” or “that 7-something plane” or even just boeing as being the one that keeps crashing.

I fully expect websites to pop up that will take a flight number as input and tell people if there is a MAX plane involved.

They won’t shake this one off easily.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#46

Post by core-questions »

mrtksn wrote: post #40

I was looking into API to make an app for avoiding this plane, then I thought maybe I should not upset those who can kill hundreds of people and expect to get away with it. I am not a nervous flyer, I even used to do paragliding but I am pretty determined to wait few years before flying on one of those. One thing I learned about paragliding was that you must trust your equipment or don’t fly.

Will your paraglider fit into your carryon? :)

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#47

Post by omegant »

I bet they will stop building the 737 max and start building the 737”new model that is the max with some changes that can be retrofitted”. Like a larger stabilizer, longer frame, or maybe something easier. But something that lets them say it’s a “new” model but keeps 99% of the production line untouched and can be negotiated with the existing buyers. We’ll see how it works in some weeks.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#48

Post by kayfox »

rst wrote: post #16
mark-r wrote: post #3

The 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.

I think they were gambling on the delay being a reasonable amount of time, say 6 months. Now the FAA has had the final updated software for something like a month and a half and just started certification testing.

This smacks of some incompetence on behalf of the FAA, since if they had a clear idea of what the requirements were for re-certification, they would also have a clear idea of how long it should take, and the last 6 months have been delays and "we will be done when were done".

I'm also not too keen on the machisimo of the FAA Administrator insisting on testing the aircraft himself.

Everyone here on HN wants this to be drawn out to punish Boeing, but its really punishing everyone, including the wallets of people buying airline tickets. Ticket prices have been high with many airlines because of their grounded fleet.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#49

Post by mark-r »

rst wrote: post #16
mark-r wrote: post #3

The 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.

Their initial reaction was "nothing to see here, keep moving". When it was clear that wouldn't fly, it was "don't worry, we'll have a fix ready before you know it". It should have been clear when the entire world stopped trusting their certification that this was going to be a long drawn out process. The scariest part of this event is their apparent disconnect from reality. Their gamble was a losing one from the beginning.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#50

Post by nickjj »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
ryanisnan wrote: post #19

I'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, 3…

> lawsuits that are surely incoming are going to pile-drive this company into the ground Legally, everyone is indemnified up the wazoo. Strategically, airlines are in a worse position if Boeing goes under. Not only do they lose the planes on order. They also lose their service and replacement-parts provider. The survivors would, in the medium-term, face an Airbus monopoly and, in the long-term, a Chinese-European duo…

> Strategically, airlines are in a worse position if Boeing goes under.

It is an interesting situation for airlines.

Boeing is kind of a leaky abstraction layer on flying. End users deal with the airlines, not so much Boeing directly.

For example, if Amazon ships your package and it comes 4 days late because FedEx screwed up, you're going to likely think negatively of Amazon not FedEx. Because from your POV it's "Amazon said it will be here today but it's not".

Likewise if a major US airline's plane went down due to Boeing's fault it would probably ruin the entire airline. It gets even more weird when you think about airlines making questionable decisions to push Boeing into making poor decisions or knowingly operate when captains of those airlines are aware of the faults but the airline still flies them anyways and this is where it leaks.

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