Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 273 posts

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#121

Post by alasdair_ »

themagician wrote: post #43
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.

The US government will ensure Boeing as an entity continues to exist, but that doesn't mean existing shareholders will keep their equity at the current valuation.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#122

Post by ismail »

wayoutthere wrote: post #42
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.

I am not from the states. both of the comments below indicate that Boeing is a strategic asset. Other comments also express similar sentiments.

What is the logic for this? why is this the case?

“They are a strategic asset to the United States far beyond their market value.”

”the airlines know that Boeing will never go under because the US government would (justifiably) never let that happen for strategic reasons“

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#123

Post by __jal »

ismail wrote: post #122
wayoutthere wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I am not from the states. both of the comments below indicate that Boeing is a strategic asset. Other comments also express similar sentiments. What is the logic for this? why is this the case? “They are a strategic asset to the United States far beyond their market value.” ”the airlines know that Boeing will never go under because the US government would (justifiably) never let that happen for strategic reasons“

They are are the equivalent of Airbus - a national champion for both commercial and military contracting.

Imagine the US military going to another country hat-in-hand to buy aircraft.

That's why.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#124

Post by jorblumesea »

thehappypm wrote: post #110
hinkley wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Carolina and the 787 assembly process both looked like pretty poorly concealed union busting tactics to me. First you made a plane that doesn't require the massive gantry cranes to construct. Smaller portable equipment does a lot of the work. You can build new, cheaper facilities. Then you move things more or less to the opposite corner of the country, but closer to the new headquarters. Yeah, not suspicious at…

Any chance you could elaborate on this? I am not following this comment thread, not able to read between the lines.

Highly skilled industrial work often requires highly skilled and educated workers, who are more likely to unionize or might already have unions in place. By building facilities that require assembly using less skilled means, you are selecting for a different type of worker and different manufacturing processes. Basically, Boeing tried to turn aircraft manufacturing into something closer to an Amazon fulfillment center. Which certainly helps the bottom line, but maybe not the quality line.

The implication about the headquarters is factories closer to the HQ can be easily controlled and execs can fly down and sort out problems. Chicago to Charlotte is All of this can be seen within the wider context of the "financialization" of Boeing, with the company moving more towards a business focus and less of an engineering led company.

Apologies for the long post, lots going on here.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#125

Post by kelnos »

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.

Seems like there'd be no need for such an app since the plane is grounded.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#126

Post by inferiorhuman »

__jal wrote: post #123
ismail wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not from the states. both of the comments below indicate that Boeing is a strategic asset. Other comments also express similar sentiments. What is the logic for this? why is this the case? “They are a strategic asset to the United States far beyond their market value.” ”the airlines know that Boeing will never go under because the US government would (justifiably) never let that happen for strategic reasons“

They are are the equivalent of Airbus - a national champion for both commercial and military contracting. Imagine the US military going to another country hat-in-hand to buy aircraft. That's why.

Imagine the US military going to another country hat-in-hand to buy aircraft.

You mean like with the Harrier or Eurocopter? Or more like the KC-30 where Boeing protested until Airbus dropped out?

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#127

Post by munk-a »

markus_zhang wrote: post #39
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 is one of the pillars of the American economy and the market as well. Dumping the stock will hurt pretty much every fund that invested on it, plus Dow will plunge just because of this one stock if it's getting dumped. Boeing, as well as many other firms, are just too big to fail suddenly.

Honestly, I don't know why Boeing has this image of being such a vital cog in America - America isn't wholly dependent on Boeing and if it was that'd be a generally terrible thing anyways.

Also, who cares about the Dow plunging if it's for such a clear and explicable reason - it's usually used by politicians to gauge mysterious impacts on the economy, when you know the cog that broke to cause the numbers to swivel it's a pretty useless metric - you already know the thing.

It's sort of like not wanting to go into maintenance mode to deploy a big infrastructure patch because being forced into maintenance mode is bad - yea, it is, and if you can avoid taking servers offline go ahead and do that - but if you can't then just eat the outage as it's probably better to upgrade things than to refuse to upgrade due to the fact that it will expose the fact that you had to upgrade.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#128

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #111
starfallg wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chinese-European duopoly Unlikely. The Chinese is currently competing with Embraer (E-Jet E2) and Bombardier (C-series/A22x) with the Comac C919 which has problems with production. Since its first flight in 2017, there has only been 5 built. Tech transfers has also slowed to trickle since the HSR fiasco with foreign rail technology absorbed and then re-exported. Nobody trusts the Chinese to play fair. What's more l…

The Chinese is currently competing with Embraer (E-Jet E2) and Bombardier (C-series/A22x) AKA Boeing and Airbus.

The C919 is a narrowbody jet aimed at the 737/A320. There are no Chinese widebody/twin aisle aircraft, now or anytime in the foreseeable future, that can compete with the 787/A350.

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#129

Post by selimthegrim »

bumby wrote: post #95
selimthegrim wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SWA and AA are morally responsible for some of these design choices. I’m sure they would come up in any suit vs Boeing

Is this regarding the airline delivery pressure that influenced schedule or some other mechanism?

Not just schedule but design, training (SWA incentives)

Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January

#130

Post by gniv »

hinkley wrote: post #87
markus_zhang wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing is one of the pillars of the American economy and the market as well. Dumping the stock will hurt pretty much every fund that invested on it, plus Dow will plunge just because of this one stock if it's getting dumped. Boeing, as well as many other firms, are just too big to fail suddenly.

There was a really weird moment for me about ten years ago when I realized Apple could pay cash to buy Boeing. I mean, obviously they wouldn't, but something is off about the scale of it all. Are we sure it's a pillar? Perhaps if you take all of the suppliers and partners it represents, sure. But by itself, I don't think it really look all that impressive. After The War, the US government was careful to keep domestic…

Interesting comparison. I guess the difference is that the supply chain of Boeing is mostly in the US, whereas for Apple it's mostly overseas.
Post reply on HN