Oh!! The tragedy...737 Max was the preferred choice for people too scared to commit suicide & people who liked to live on the edge. Every time it took-off, there was no certainty that it will land back safely. It was a technical marvel that Airbus could not even dream of and the Chinese spys are working tirelessly to steal the its design. This is an injustice.
Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
191–200 of 273 posts
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah...they can buy other 737 variants. The MAX may be one of the most fuel-efficient 737s on the market, but the 737NG line is still in production.
They are not going to buy more NGs. The NG is technically still in production but production has wound down significantly. All orders for airlines have been built, and all that remains are orders for the military version and various private customers. It would probably cost somewhat more for Southwest to order NGs now than it did during the production heyday where economies of scale made the plane cheaper to produce.…
The A220-300 could also be a reasonable choice.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#193I'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…
SWA and AA are morally responsible for some of these design choices. I’m sure they would come up in any suit vs Boeing
Except none of their pilots crashed the plane despite flying an order of magnitude more flights than Ethiopian or Lion Air. The difference is that US pilots are far better trained and maintenance doesn’t skimp like Lion Air had a long history of doing. The Lion Air plane should have been grounded when the the AOA sensor was reported bad on the flight the day before the crash. The executive in charge of Lion Air maintenance should be in jail: they let the plane fly knowing the AOA sensor was faulty. The MEL for that airplane required the AOA sensor. For some reason we let Lion Air off the hook, but look at their history: one of the most dangerous airlines in existence and that isn’t Boeing’s fault.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#194I'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…
Isn’t the problem that all of our mutual funds just keep buying Boeing stock no matter what bad things happen?
Most index funds are in some matter market weighted. So when the price crashes, they buy less, and vice versa. You can see how this could have some odd effects, but the thesis is that heavily leveraged smart money washes it out.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#195Lost in all of this discussion is the fact that Boeing problems began with South Carolina. The fact that politics played a big role in opening that plant should not be ignored. MAX wasn’t just designed poorly, the organization process within Boeing was already failing. It’s a corporate culture failure.
The airplane wasn’t designed in South Carolina. That issue with the unions is one manufactured by the unions and is nonsense. The union PR machine has a vested interest in pushing that narrative.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#196Earlier 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…
It gutted "domestic manufacturing", it lavished largesse on the military-industrial sector specifically (and even there, the post Cold War consolidation that Warren Christopher specifically promoted is one of the reasons the aerospace sector is such a mess).
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any chance you could elaborate on this? I am not following this comment thread, not able to read between the lines.
I remember reading South Carolina has among the lowest union representation among relevant workers.
And that has no relevance outside of union propaganda. Consider the Mafia tactics of the unions, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was internal sabotage. Union workers aren’t inherently better (or worse,) just more expensive.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CR929 is vaporware: they're not even planning to begin construction of the first prototype until 2021. Also, it's "CR" for "China/Russia", since this is meant to be a joint venture between COMAC and UAC (Sukhoi). Which sounds like a great recipe to delay everything even further. Also also, even if China does pull off the airframe, they'll still rely on Western jets to power it. China's first modern turbofan, the…
Yes yes yes. But even if everything plays out like you say I don’t think you can say there’s no foreseeable future in which this happens. Please engage with the actual plans and state the technical details you know rather than saying that China has no roadmap do a thing they have a roadmap to do. Also let’s be clear if the C919 actually works out they will be a serious competitor. The market for wide body aircraft is…
Also let’s be clear if the C919 actually works out they will be a serious competitor. The market for wide body aircraft is the one that captures all the imagination and attention but the narrow body sales are the bread and butter.
That's a pretty large if. Head west a bit to Russia and see how they're doing in the international market. The Sukhoi SuperJet is, by most accounts, a great plane. Sukhoi managed to sell to the Mexicans (Interjet) and Irish (CityJet) and both got rid of them quickly. Being a threat to Boeing/Embraer and Airbus/Bombardier goes well beyond the complex task of building an airliner.
Sukhoi and Comac are still hugely dependent on the west to build these planes. Avionics and engines especially. The metallurgy required to build a modern turbofan engine is incredibly exotic — outside of France, England, and the US it's simply not there. The Superjet didn't fare well -- the Russians collaborated with Safran and the result was a unreliable engine that was hard to find replacement parts for. The Russians are also currently peddling the PD-14 that competes with the 20+ year old CFM56. Comac skipped that step and went straight to GE.
Comac abandoned carbon fiber for the wings in favor of aluminum. While the C919 wings are built in China, I believe they're a European design (Comac's previous stillborn attempt at an airliner used Ukraine's Antonov for the wings).
They absolutely do not need to succeed in this market right away to put a big dent in the duopoly.
Sure they do. Network effects are huge with airliners. If your Embraer breaks down away from your maintenance base chances are you can buy / borrow parts from another airline. If you're the only one around flying, you're entirely reliant on the manufacturer — and Comac doesn't have any sort of international support network.
Bombardier and Embraer both developed competitors to the 737 on the small side, both nearly went bankrupt, and both were eventually acquired. Unfortunately when you're a widget salesman like McNerney everything looks like a damn commodity. While McNerney's actions set Boeing back quite a bit, Comac is a far smaller threat than he thought. If Boeing can deliver on a MAX replacement it's doubtful that Comac will move the needle much in the next 10-15 years.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 duopoly. Boeing "going under" just means that shareholders will get wiped out, not that they cease operations.
I wonder if Lockheed Martin would get back into passenger jets. Or Bombardier leads a Canadian aerospace resurgence.
I wonder if we will be to trust Mitsubishi designed wing root components should they fly.
Re: Boeing to Suspend 737 Max Production in January
#200Earlier 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.
Isn't it bad government policy to be strategically dependent on a single company? Boeing enjoys its dominant position in large part due to US government policy and the US military's procurement policies (in the 80s there were over 20 major defense contractors, now there are only six). It seems to me like the government has been shortsighted in letting things get to this point.
There was once a story here one HN (1 or 2 years ago) about this. There is often just one or so company who can prduce some special parts. So a large company started to buy a lot of these small but important companys. After that, they raise the prize by factor of ten or so.